An elevator to space? NASA gives idea a lift.

Mountain View ^ | 10/22/05 | David Perlamn

[KevinDavis]

Space is a long, long way up, but a dozen ambitious high-tech teams assembled in Mountain View on Friday, prepared to compete under NASA encouragement with far-out concepts for reaching the planets in ways no one has ever attempted.

The dozen teams are inventive entrants into the arcane world of untried ventures in aerospace engineering, and this weekend at NASA's Ames Research Center they will be vying for modest prizes -- the first in an annual series of competitions as creative and extreme as any space groupie could envision.

NASA's ultimate goal -- perhaps by 2020 -- is the development of a motorized robotic "climber" powered only by light beams and capable of carrying humans and cargo more than 62,000 miles into space on a tough, lightweight "tether" thinner than Saran wrap. The tether would be made of substances called carbon nanotubes that haven't yet been created in quantity.

[KevinDavis]

Cool....

[KevinDavis]

[Termite_Commander]

The space elevator... There's an idea that's been around for a while.

Those carbon nanotubes that were developed recently make this sound pretty plausible. Neat stuff.

[KevinDavis]

We are on a verge of new industries being formed soon..

[mtbopfuyn]

Hmm, Tower of Babel...

[skikvt]

Please put me on your ping list. Thanks!!!

[CondorFlight]

"powered only by light beams"

Hey, Gyro Gearloose had a rocket that could do this, and showed off his invention to Donald Duck, more than 50 years ago.

How come it's taken NASA so long to catch up with Duckburg?

[EsmeraldaA]

Well, It's almost here. Isn't it?

[stboz]

7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

God must be a Democrat...dumbing down society.

[KevinDavis]

Getting close...

[mmercier]

You beat me to it.

It is now feasible (financially) and possible (technically).

The Japanese have been perfecting carbon tube technology for decades, they have gone far beyond anything people will believe today, and that was yesterday.

[Petey139]

It going to require alot of rope and land to achieve this. Still their are many questions such as how will they built the higher end of the tower. Planes do not float, Helicopters would be a bit riskee and certainly using the lift to built it would be impossible since their is no such thing as a crane which can reach as high as the heavens.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

That's what entered my mind.....I guess one would have to look at the motive behind the desire.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

That's what entered my mind.....I guess one would have to look at the motive behind the desire.

[PMCarey]

Sure it sounds cool now; but wait 'till the first kid rides it and punches all of the buttons on the way up to geosynchronous orbit.

[gitmo]

Development has been going on for this project since 1996. I knew some of the people who moved to work on it.

[TaxesR2High]

Add me to the ping list please.

[SubMareener]

Last thing in the world we need is a big lightning rod on the earth to catch the passing solar storms! These folks have not thought this through. The earth is surrounded with a vacuum for a reason!

[GreenHornet]

If successful, it would be the world's first "Space Elevator"

I just dread the thought of getting on that thing, then having to listen to Muzak for 62,000 miles.

[solitas]

<snicker>