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.

I think there is more important and more urgent things to think about, than this.

Agree. I sure wouldnt put this as my top priority. This probably aint the better way to spend money now, but im sure there are some much worse.

The fortunate aspect of this whole enterprise is that it is being pursued "voluntarily" for the most part... These guys are mostly hypothesizing and theorizing at this stage, mostly on their own time as I understand it.

But then again, look at Virgin Galactic... who can say?

I don't think you have thought about this enugph Sky. Dirt cheep costs to transport stuff in to space means any company could put thousands of solar cells in orbit and transmit that energy back to earth. But sufficent cells in orbit and two things happen A) No more mid east oil since energy is nearly free and B) Block out a lot of sun light reducing global warming.

Plus we can start building cheap orbital habats to reduce population in crowed areas of the world and micro-grav argiculture to feed everyone on the cheap.

So its eather a space elevator or a bunch of Orion launches to save the Earth... :rock:

I tend to agree with skybird on this one.

Even if the costs of transporting things into orbit was cheap, totally excluding the astronomical cost of a space elevator, thousands of photovoltaic cells, a system of orbital habitats and greenhouses, and all the training, personnel, and materials to make those things possible certainly would be prohibitively expensive. Especially right now. That is even more true if we had enough of said facilities to actually affect the amount of sunlight reaching earth in any significant fashion.


IMO, the most pressing issue right now is economic and state reform. Poor countries can't build space elevators.:hmm:

On the other hand you are describing a situation that has always existed to some degree since our species first climbed down from the trees. If we were to put off inventing new things until everyone is financially secure we'd still be wearing animal skins and living in caves.

I don't get it.:-?

Innovation and invention are key to surviving in the free market. Business invents things all the time. We can have scientific progress and financial success.

All I'm saying is that if the state were to pursue such a concept, it would cost hundreds of billions or possibly trillions of dollars that we don't have, which would inevitably result in more economic damage than the current system already perpetuates.

Now if some corporate giant decided to go out and build a space elevator, I wouldn't mind at all. I might even invest in it.

The vast majority of the research and funding for this project is being done by private industries like Liftport.
http://www.liftport.com/

That's cool. Their NASA grant is not.

A carbon nanotube breaking that was built by nanobots. Hahahahaha! Try it. Not gonna happen.

-S