He held the string. It looked for all the world like a piece of black monofilament fishing line. “This is how you are going to get to mars?”

“Prestressed steel strands will break at about 1860 MPascals. For carbon nanotube the theoretical limit is about 33 times that at one sixth the weight. Our processes uses multiple layering, interlocked on a molecular level. We’ve been able to improve the tensile strengths by 17 times. And in theory, could get levels 120 times stronger.”

“So assuming you could make a cable stretch from a stationary satellite to the surface of mars, how much would it weigh?”

“The cable itself would mass about 75,000 tons.”

“It cost us $10,000 a pound to get things into low earth orbit! You want to send 75,000 TONS to mars! Do you have any idea of the cost?”

“Yes sir. It would be cost prohibitive. That is, if we were to send material for the cable from earth. We want to manufacture the cable in situ with local materials.”

“Where are you getting the carbon?”

“Deimos”, said Wilson.