Well, Plutonium didn’t exist before 1940, but within just a few years it became the basis of hundreds of city-destroying nuclear weapons. With that in mind, I wqouldn’t rule out industrial (or even orbital) length nanotubes, though it would take a huge impetus (like a world war or a let’s-get-to-the-moon-first space race) to marshall the immense scientific and economic resources.
Since the international space station is already of fairly dubious value, it’s hard to imagine congress coughing up the billions+ a space elevator would require. I think a more likely course would be a gradual loosening up of NASA’s space monopoly and private companies finding less-expensive ways to get things into orbit.
If someone does come up with a cheap way to produce nanotubes, their first government-sponsored application will probably be super-armored tanks and warships. The space elevator will come much later.
Says there that they’ve managed to draw a strand 30 cm long and 200 microns wide made from pure nanotube, no resin or bonding agents needed. The technique is similar to spinning thread from a silk cocoon.
Someone (and forgive me, I’m too tired to do the search, I’ve just put in a 16 hr day and have been up for something like 20 hrs) posted a thread about this in GQ a few months back, the thread got bounced to MPSIMS, but it included a link to an article which gave a detailed profile of the company and some of the individuals involved. IIRC, there were several software industry leaders (though not Bill Gates, sadly, since he’s probably got enough change in the seat cushions of his couch to fund the whole project) and NASA engineers who were setting up the company. From what the article said, the folks were really covering all their bases. They were even researching ways to keep the thing safe from 9/11 style terrorists. The possible killer with this project are the start-up costs. If they can get people to bite the bullet and pony up the cash, to build this thing, it will be profitable.
Popular Mechanics has done a couple of articles on the space elevator. Here and here (assuming I’ve done the links right).