Nanotubes in Space

I guess space exploration is on inventors minds, or I should say, in their pocketbooks. The news on nanotubes is the latest space applications. They even sent a new nanotube sensor on the last shuttle mission to test how well a nanotube smoke detector would work. Smoke doesn't travel up in zero g. It spreads out only with any drafts. Candles will put themselves out because there is not any gravity to make hot air rise and the flame quickly starves itself. (article)

Another big one was a new nanotube tape that is 4 times stickier than gecko's feet. Making it much more sticky than the best duct tape out there. Even though it uses the weak Van Der Waals interactions there are so many of them it makes up for it. Since it is not really glue it doesn't transfer or break, and cold doesn't effect it. Think of it as tiny branches with other tiny branches, and on and on. So the branches literally go into the material they are touching and become part of it through weak forces. Weak compared to normal bonds that are in all elements or compounds. This all means it is a tape that can be used in space. And that is a rare thing. (article)

Some other headlines that might make you go ah:

• Researchers at Centre National de La Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France have discovered a solution for storing hydrogen inside special carbon nanotubes. This storage solution may have important applications for the future of renewable energy economy, including hydrogen based cars. (article)
  
• A research team has identified a new biological function for a soccer ball-shaped nanoparticle called a buckyball – the ability to block allergic response, setting the stage for the development of new therapies for allergy. (article)

A little explanation on buckyballs: They are the smallest of the nanotubes with no tube shape. Just a perfect circle containing 60 carbon atoms. And to give you an idea of how few that is 3/4 of a pound of carbon would = 1 mole of carbon atoms = 6.02 * 10^23 atoms = 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. That means if you split it up among all 6 billion inhabitants of the earth each person would have 100,333,333,333,333 each