(Polymers can be infused with carbon nanotubes instead to make materials with similar properties, but graphene will likely be much cheaper.)Graphene-based composites promise to revolutionize everyday materials, as well as make aircraft and spacecraft lighter yet stronger. Only about 2% of the mass of the composite is from the graphene pieces. Yet one sheet of it has the strength to hold up an elephant standing on it.So how could graphene help the Gen1 Enterprise? To see the benefits, assume all of the ship’s hulls are made out of a graphene-based composite.īy dispersing small pieces of graphene sheets throughout polymers, researchers have made tough, lightweight composite materials. Could you even feel it? The sheet would be virtually weightless, and it would be transparent. The challenge for manufacturing is making large sheets of this one-atom thick material while having a low percentage of defects at bond sites.It would be fascinating to hold a sheet of graphene in your hands. The atomic forces at the bonding sites between atoms are extremely strong. It’s a single layer of carbon atoms (called a monolayer) arranged with the structure shown at the top of this page. Graphene is stronger than steel or any known material.Graphene is a conceptually simple material.
Graphene is a kind of miracle material, and it could be perfect for use in the hulls and structural members of the Gen1 Enterprise. But this approach ignores the coming nanotechnology revolution.The likely first nano-engineered material to come into widespread use is graphene. Because the Gen 1 Enterprise is all about technologies within reach, I’ve assumed the outer hull surfaces are made of an aluminum alloy and the inner walls and structural members are made of composites that are just incrementally better than today’s composites.
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