[sbirchall]

Who's to say the value of Diamond has yet been truly appreciated? If I'm understanding things correctly this diamond would have formed under conditions we simply cannot recreate in a manufacturing process, given the magnitude of time and energy involved. It is not inconceivable that the properties of these carbon crystals could be VERY appealing. For an example I recall a statistic that claimed the entire _data throughput_ of the UK could be encoded on a crystal of carbon barely the size of a grain of sand. Space elevators and orbital rings spring to mind as well, and who's even saying that we want to get this stuff back to dirty old earth when we're jetting around the cosmos in our hyper diamond meta skeletons on stellar farm errands!?

[Simucal]

The entire data throughput of the UK over what amount of time?

[stephengillie]

We have tons of carbon on earth. We inhale and exhale it all the time. It's one of the top 4 atoms in the universe, along with hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Turning matter from diamond to carbon-fiber, or anything else, takes much energy. This is why diamond is so hard to cut - the carbon atoms have very strong magnetic bonds, and separating them takes a lot more force than separating iron atoms when cutting steel.