Space Elevators: Low Cost Ticket to GEO?

Crocuta writes "The current issue of Science News features a cover story that discusses the current developments in space elevator technology. NASA has been working on such devices for many years, but private companies such as Highlift Systems are now jumping on the space elevator bandwagon, no doubt seeing the huge potential profit in a low cost per pound delivery system. PhysicsWeb has a somewhat older, but much more technical article on the formation and structure of the carbon nanotubes that form the basis of the proposed tether cables. With a development like this, we could shoot entire boy bands into space and make the world a better place."

Comments

What's Really Going On Here

[Baldrson]

If you thought defending infrastructure like The World Trade Center required giving up your rights, what do you think you'll have to give up to defend gargantuan centralized infrastructure like this?

All this talk of a huge centralized project is just a response to the inevitability of NASA being shown to be what it is: A social control device to impede the dispersal of life long enough for bureaucratic structures to adapt to the freedom promised by cheap access to space. As pressure builds from the best news since the transistor that has recently come out of India combined with the real response to it from the West coming out of Texas, we'll see more and more of this kind of talk from the bureaucrats.

Frivolous waste, just for a GEO

[sharkey]

NASA spends $1,000,000 plus to built a space-pen, the Russians use a pencil. Now, they are building a space elevator to get down the street to buy a cheap car that couldn't hit 55 if it was droped out of a plane.

Re:Riiiiight...

[Myco]

Dumbass, it wouldn't be "degrees" if it were Kelvin. ;)