Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible

Daniel_Stuckey writes "It's the scourge of futurists everywhere: The space elevator can't seem to shake its image as something that's just ridiculous, laughed off as the stuff of sci-fi novels and overactive imaginations. But there are plenty of scientists who take the idea quite seriously, and they're trying to buck that perception. To that end, a diverse group of experts at the behest of the International Academy of Astronautics completed an impressively thorough study this month on whether building a space elevator is doable. Their resulting report, 'Space Elevators: An Assessment of the Technological Feasibility and the Way Forward,' found that, in a nutshell, such a contraption is both totally feasible and a really smart idea. And they laid out a 300-page roadmap detailing how to make it happen."

Comments

Laughable what?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It's the scourge of futurists everywhere: The space elevator can't seem to shake its image as something that's just ridiculous, laughed off as the stuff of sci-fi novels and overactive imaginations.

I've first heard of space elevators decades ago, and not once have I read or heard anyone saying it's a ridiculous or laughable idea. All I've heard is that it'd be a really great, smart and economical way to access space, if only a strong and light material could be found to prevent the cable from being several miles across in diameter at the base and collapse under its own weight. Where did the story's submitter get that from?