Slashdot Mirror
Space Elevator Company Fission
Dag Maggot writes "Highlift Systems seems to be going through some turbulent times with cofounder Michael Laine leaving to form his own space elevator company LiftPort. Interestingly, Liftport pledges to be a "transparent" company, and as such have provided the full text of the original space elevator proposal which was made to NASA NIAC." We mentioned Liftport before, but the proposal is new and quite interesting.
Because, id like to see an alternative to storing nuclear waste underground (too much controversy and NIMN(not in my neighborhood)). We could safely lift the material up into space and then launch the waste somewhere else. This is still many years aways, but I hope they get some good funding to do their research, and build some test platforms.
later,
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
Maybe I'm missing the point, but why does anybody give this article any credibility whatsoever? If you look at the slashdot article, they act like this is a legitimate company with a realistic goal. But what kind of company puts animated GIFs of a "space elevator" on their home page and supports their idea with citations from science fiction novels? They tell us this has been considered by NASA. But so has the Podkletnov effect, which supposedly miraculously shields objects from earth's gravity. Either NASA isn't given enough funding to do background checks, or they're checking out every crackpot who comes along in hopes of finding gold. I'm betting this is a hoax, but if it isn't, this guy has about as much chance of constructing his space elevator as Imari Stevenson has of designing a Final Fantasy sequel. A word to the wise.
No, less than a twentieth of a trillion. Read their FAQ before posting here.
Hey, that's less than half of what we spent on GulfWar II! And there'd probably be more lasting benefit to one of these.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"