Lunar Space Elevator Instead?

koa writes "We have all seen articles on building a Space Elevator on the earth, how about this article about experimenting with the Moon first since the technology we have available to us is sufficient, as the Moon's gravity is 1/6th that of Earth's (the cable weight would require less exotic materials such as carbon nano-tubes). One could make a very good argument for commercialization of Space if getting materials to and from the Moon's surface was vastly cheaper and easier."

Comments

Re:how to design against terrorists?

[johnsjs]

sneak?

How do you sneak a bomb into a payload which is calculated to less than a kilo - if the payload is too heavy the launcher won't go where it's meant to, and you know that there's something extra on board.

You can even handily calculate how much extra weight you've got, so how big the bomb can be.

Obviously you could substitute a bomb for legitimate cargo, but I thought you guys had finally decided that kerb side check in just wasn't worth it?