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

Not a pressing need?

What if we are invaded by aliens! :p

Or not as bad but more probable what if China builds one first and starts throwing rocks. :know:

Go read "The moon in a harsh mistress" by Robert Heinlein if you don't get the "Throwing Rocks" refrence. ;)

So what if a space elevator is expensive. Nearly anything with a major benifit to socity is expensive. As the prevously mentioned Robert Heinlein put it TANSTAAFL.

Why is everyone considering that government would be doing this? Government doesn't advance society, private enterprise does. There wasn't a government on earth pursuing the hybrid automobile, the best antipollution and energy efficiency automobile propulsion so far. The ones who give us the change we seek and who "save the world" will be the evil corporations governments seek to punish.

If a major corporation decides a space elevator makes economic sense, no power on earth will stop it. Postulating some false "choice" between the space elevator and some irrelevent environmental concern, no matter how valid, is ridiculous. We are perfectly capable of saving some trees (are there any left in Europe?), building space elevators and going to Disney World too.