Space Elevator

A cable connecting a point on the surface of a planet to a point directly overhead in synchronous orbit. Simple, really.

The point is that you can haul lots of stuff up them quickly and cheaply.

• http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/CLARK1.HTM (an essay by Arthur C Clarke)
• http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SPBI120.HTM (an entry in the Nowicki Earth To Orbit Transportation Bibliography)
• http://www.howstuffworks.com/space-elevator.htm
• http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/elevator.asp
• http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/05/1914246
• http://www.spacedaily.com/news/future-01f.html
• http://www.eurekasci.com/SPACE_ELEVATOR/Space_Elevator_Homepage.html
• http://www.spacedaily.com/news/future-01f.html
• http://www.liftport.com/ (a private company in Washington State which is working towards building the first Space Elevator)
• http://www.liftwatch.org/ (Space Elevator News)
• http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SpaceElevator
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
• http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/osew/ (Real Ultimate Power!)
• The Telegraph of 19/11/2003 ran an article about space elevators (which you have to register to view... grr), suggesting that they might take a few weeks to get to geostationary orbit and would be powered by powerful lasers hitting photoelectric cells which would transfer energy to motors.
• http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/space/spaceelevator.html
• http://mirrordot.org/stories/57bf2421c2f526d463cdfe1c276cd3ed/index.html (some geeks managed to make a working model of a space elevator - sadly their site was slashdotted shortly after: this is a mirror)

"The space elevator will be built about fifty years after everyone stops laughing" -- Arthur C Clarke.

It would be ace if someone could dig out a link the ancient newsgroup thread we had about Space Elevators. Also, once the current (7/3/2003) OUSFG Chat thread has finished, we should link to archives of that. Or summarise both the above. Or something.

You'd want to build one out of a fishnet tether <http://www.tethers.com/Hoytether.html>.

Possible cheap answer to Space Tourism.

What about Sky Hooks?