Ill let you all take a ride before me.;)

The first version of the space elevator will be retractable. They plan to reel out the cable from a station in the middle of the Pacific near the Equator. It will be pointed pretty much in the East direction as the rotation of the Earth will hold it up and help keep it stable. Once it's unreeled, they can send payloads up the cable into space and then just retract it so it won't be up all the time. It's not going to be permanently unreeled and reaching to space all the time.

The real question is. Who would want to spend money to go up in a elevator to space? Would the cost realy be worth it.:-? I mean theres nothing to see in space, except. well space.

Or alternatively, it would cut the cost of making orbit (the most expensive part of any space operation) many times over.

"Seeing" is not the important part. The space is full of potential for exploring resources, many of which are rare on earth - the problem is that it's just been too expensive to obtain them. And as the article linked in the first post suggests, even putting solar energy farms at the top of space elevators may be a very shrewd decision. Whatever the case, this has the potential of making space accessible without the need for extremely expensive, dangerous, polluting rockets.

Currently it costs over $5000 to get a kilogram of useful payload into Low Earth Orbit (and several times more than that to geostationary orbit, which is where this space elevator would be anchored). A space elevator would could one day cut that cost by hundreds of times.

I don't know about that. I think we will see a space elveator once space travel becomes comonplace enough for it to be feasible.

But the time is not now. We have more pressing issues to deal with.

You're kidding? Right? The technologies that have been discovered and created in whole and in part due to our space program more than justify the costs... IMO.

Once the elevator is built, it should prove to be more cost effective to use it to loft payloads both to and from orbit. The elevator represents a "reusable" resource, unlike portions of the current shuttle and rocket booster systems.

It will also be a little safer as you wouldn't have to deal with the controlled explosion of liftoff using volitile liquid and solid (which are more dangerous than liquid) propellents. It will be nice to ride into orbit on something that isn't a flying bomb.

I hope this thing is sturdy. A earthquake/ tidal wave/ plate movement could make it fall.:-? And what if it breaks.

Again, I repeat what I said before: it's no incident that the carbon nanotubes that this is being designed around are to be the strongest material ever used. That's why the scientists working on the elevator want them so much - if it could be done with a steel or nylon cable, you'd think they would have already done it. Or at least made a giant space guitar :88)

Well only time will tell.:D lets see if they finish it.

Now there's a project I could get behind:up:

It should be failry stable as the base will be out floating in the middle of the Pacific pretty much right on the Equator. Earthquakes won't affect it. A tidal wave won't bother it because at the depth of the ocean out there, tidal waves aren't noticable at all. If it's made of the right material, it won't break but even if it does, it just falls on maybe 22-30 miles of ocean. Also, the fact that this thing will be ship born (on something resembling a large floating oil rig) and the fact that it will be retractable means that the cable won't be deployed all the time. It will only be reeled out when they're having a "launch" and of course, they'll have to watch the weather and pretty much everything they already do now with our current rockets. It should be a fairly stable platform. It's a lot safer and easier on the payload/human body to launch this way. No riding a flying bomb, not half as much vibrations that can shake payloads apart, etc...

Some brains seem to have too much time.

Probably, but if theres a faster, cheaper, safer way to transport cargo into space i dont see why it shouldnt be done, and since my country and my tax money have nothing to do with it, all i can say is lets build it!

not only that, but think of the technology and expertise required to build such a technological wonder. Perhaps a project of such scale would a great way to see what we can accomplish as a people, and possibly create some more jobs.