Has anyone ever heard about the space elevator? It's an idea for a tether that attaches to the ground at one end, and attaches to a counterweight that is out past geosynchronous orbit at the other end. The fact that the counterweight is out past geosynchronous orbit means that the tether is kept tight by centrifugal force, and you can run an "elevator" or "climber" up the cable to orbit.

You could drop a satelite off at the geosynchronous orbit point, and have it in orbit without ever sending up an expensive and dangersous rocket. Or you could take it all the way out to the counterweight, and the centrifugal force would fling it to the moon or Mars or beyond.

It sounds like science fiction, or some crazy-assed stoner idea, but there are engineers and scientists working on it right now. The X Prize people are spnosoring contests related to developing parts of the technology, like the tether and the climbers.

Here are some links:

Space elevator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Space Elevator Reference brought to you by SpaceRef

What do you think of this idea?
dragonrider Reviewed by dragonrider on . Space Elevator Has anyone ever heard about the space elevator? It's an idea for a tether that attaches to the ground at one end, and attaches to a counterweight that is out past geosynchronous orbit at the other end. The fact that the counterweight is out past geosynchronous orbit means that the tether is kept tight by centrifugal force, and you can run an "elevator" or "climber" up the cable to orbit. You could drop a satelite off at the geosynchronous orbit point, and have it in orbit without ever Rating: 5