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Calling the Space Elevator

CornfedPig writes "SPACE.com has an article that suggests building an elevator to a 100,000 km-high penthouse could be possible within the next few years at a cost of about $5B US. Widespread availability of low-cost carbon nanotubes appears to be the gating factor. Existence of such an elevator could drop the cost of lifting things (satellites, people, CowboyNeal) into orbit to a couple of hundred dollars a pound. Anyone remember Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise?" Space elevator stories come along every few months; we never seem to be getting any closer to actually doing it. I imagine it will happen at some point in my lifetime, but...

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  1. Re:WOW! by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 4, Funny

    > If we had a few hundred space elevators on the planet, how long would it take before we could move
    > the entire mass of our planet into space?

    The Earth is already in space. Amazing huh?

    --

    -WolfWithoutAClause

    "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"