 For perspective, outstanding breakthroughs have already been made.Pioneering work led by Ray H. Baughman at the NanoTech Institute has shown that single and multi-walled nanotubes can produce materials with toughness unmatched in the man-made and natural worlds.Carbon nanotubes are also a promising material as building blocks in hierarchical composite materials given their exceptional mechanical properties (~1 TPa in modulus, and ~100 GPa in strength).