Earlier this year, Markus Landgraf, a Mission Analyst at the European Space Agency, gave a TED^x talk about the Space Elevator.  It was well done and worth the 19+ minutes of your time it will take you to listen to it.

He discusses the long CNT fibers made by a company in China and proposes using these to make an SE Cable.  The problem is, is that they’re just not yet “pure” enough to do so.  Nano-threads spun from CNTs are, so far, full of kinks and defects – the technology is just not yet there to make them like we need to have them be.  But technology continues to attack the problem and I think it’s only a matter of time…