Sadly, most of the hard sci-fi authors I read are very pessimistic about a space elevator. I say Arthur c. Clarke is right and they're wrong -- we'll have an elevator to geo-synch orbit before I die!
But, perhaps we should think small first?
If you're trying to figure out where that is, it's on the moon!
The lunar SE is a grand idea but it has one problem - there isn't a huge demand for traffic to/from the moon.
Which is fine if we can persuade the government to build one; but I don't rate that as something that is likely to happen. So we're back to needing traffic to support the thing. Which pretty much leaves us with the classic 'terrestrial' model.
brian
liftport
Posted by: Brian | November 15, 2006 at 12:03 PM
You're no fun anymore.
Posted by: pedro | November 15, 2006 at 07:51 PM