The Space Elevator - Public or Private?

AtomicGoat writes "The Space Review reports that a Space Elevator may not get built without help from the U.S. Government, but the notion that 'the DoD can also provide a sense of fiscal discipline when dealing with large, expensive programs' sounds like an Onion story. Right now a small private company (Liftport), not NASA or the Air Force, is in the lead on revolutionary space travel."

Comments

Re:Sight seeing

[Jakhel]

I dare you to drop a penny off of the top.

*Ding Ding*

[XaviorPenguin]

*ding ding*

2,756,234th Floor, Troposphere; Hardware, Automotive, and Lawn & Garden

Please watch your step as you exit and Thank You very much for shopping at Wal-Mart.

A few more bits

[edremy]

Private: When you call to find out why you got released at 50 miles altitude rather than geosync, you're treated to 20 minutes of "Press 1 if need help finding the space elevator, press 2 if you need..." interspersed with a "Best of ABBA" tape. Upon listening to your problem, the help desk staff will ask you to make sure your guidance computer is plugged in. Shortly after this you crash and die horribly. The drone on the other end of the line continues by asking "Is the flight yoke attached?"

Government When you call to find out why you got released at 50 miles altitude rather than geosync from the Halliburton(tm) Space Elevator, your call has a bunch of mysterious clicks in the background before being cut off entirely. After you die horribly in the crash, it's announced that you were a terrorist who crashed the elevator deliberatly. The president goes on to bomb Syria, even though you'd never even been there.

Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov..

[fenris_23]

Tell that to the victims of the previous attempt at a space elevator. That is what everybody is imagining.