The 62,000-Mile Elevator Ride

Another great article in Business 2.o.

The 62,000-Mile Elevator Ride
Rockets are old news. The hottest idea in space enterprise is a tether to take us all the way from Earth to orbit...

Want to bring down the cost of sending cargo into space? Just build an elevator. Since the Earth is constantly spinning, if you attach a counterweight to it with a cable, and put it 62,000 miles away, the cable will be tight enough to run an elevator or car up it.

The theory has been around for a long time. But it was only recently that a material was discovered that would be strong enough for the cable or ribbon - Nanotubes. Nanotubes can be 100 times stronger than steel and weigh only a fifth as much.

The LiftPort Group is a company that is working on a space elevator.