http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html http://www.spaceelevator.com/ http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,57536,00.html are some good starting places. This should *precede* a trip to Mars. It would make space travel way less costly and would boost the Mars mission exponentially.

They are really considering this stairway? It would not collapse under its own weight? Or am I being facetious? Is this possible considering we are out trying to save the world and simply cannot fund everything everywhere. I vote for space!

I googled around and found this cbc article: Space Elevator: Next floor, Mars CBC News Online | February 24, 2004 Reporter: Kelly Crowe | Producer: Debie Goodwin Sometimes breakthrough science can happen during a simple coffee break, at least it can at the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico where it's possible to eavesdrop on some big brains hatching a bold scheme that will transform the planet. They're calculating nothing less than the ultimate conquest of the universe. Their idea? They intend to build a fixed link into outer space. Right now, the only way into space is to be strapped to a rocket. It will boost a satellite or a shuttle into orbit, but it's like getting into space on the back of a bomb. It's dangerous, it's expensive and no one has ever been able to use a rocket twice. What if there were a better way, a ribbon slicing through the atmosphere that spacecraft could climb? An extreme version of an elevator that's right out of science fiction by writers like Arthur C. Clarke. As long as man has been able to stare at the stars the idea has been there, in Jacob's ladder, in the Tower of Babel. It was a mystical dream of something tall enough to reach into the heavens. It would be a revolution, and out here in this remote part of New Mexico scientists have already launched one revolution. Now 60 years later they're planning another one. In 1941, the world's greatest physicists gathered at Los Alamos, in secret, to build the atomic bomb. They were hidden away, courtesy of the U.S. government, under the code name the Manhattan Project. When they finished, they had packed the power of the atom into a weapon so awesome that it ended a war and launched the nuclear age. Since then, Los Alamos has continued to draw big brains with big ideas to a thriving centre of military and industrial science. Now, there's another idea percolating here, an idea just as big, with implications just as profound. But there's no big government this time. Just a few passionate scientists working on their own, for free, in their spare time. Meet astrophysicist Bryan Laubscher. "The whole beanstalk idea and the whole idea of putting a ribbon into space and just climbing it is a hard concept to sell to people on Earth who are used to rockets," he says. "That's the way to get into space, a man's way. Climb in there and they light that thing and hope it doesn't blow up." There's Ron Morgan, health physicist. He admits he's obsessed. "We're definitely on the ground floor," he says. "I think of a project that is going to change the world, absolutely. I believe that we could have the first Earth to space elevator in 12 to 15 years." And Mervyn Kellum. He's studying the business opportunities that would open up if the elevator made space travel suddenly easy. "It's a concept where we can dramatically lower the transportation costs, access to space," Kellum says. The space elevator starts with a basic platform in the ocean, near the equator. Attached to the platform is a paper-thin ribbon no more than a metre wide that stretches 100,000 kilometres into space, about one-quarter of the way to the moon. There it's tied to a satellite that pulls the ribbon taut and keeps it straight as it orbits in synch with the Earth's rotation. "The idea is somewhat like taking a ball on a string, spinning it around in your hand," Laubscher says. "It doesn't just flop down, it actually opposes the force of gravity and stands outward. That's really what's happening with this cable." Spacecraft would ride up the cable on an electrically powered climber that would be fuelled by ground-based lasers shining onto solar panels. . . . the rest is at http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/space/spaceelevator.html

"Even though the challenges to bring the space elevator to reality are substantial, there are no physical or economic reasons why it can't be built in our lifetime." That's the matter-of-fact feeling of physicist, Bradley Edwards of Eureka Scientific in Berkeley, California, but carrying out heavy lifting design work in Seattle, Washington. Edwards told SPACE.com that he's been wrapped up in space elevator work for some three years, supported by grants from NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. "I'm convinced that the space elevator is practical and doable. In 12 years, we could be launching tons of payload every three days, at just a little over a couple hundred dollars a pound," he said. "In 15 years we could have a dozen cables running full steam putting 50 tons in space every day for even less, including upper middle class individuals wanting a joyride into space. Now I just need the $5 billion, Edwards added. the rest is at: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html

Basically, a big long rope tied to the equator of earth, with a rock at the end. The spin of the earth causes the rock to generate enough centrifugal force to keep the rope tight. People could then climb the rope and get into outer space cheaply. Here's an especially useful page from which the above quote and picture comes: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SpaceElevator

The Space Elevator: NIAC report: by Dr. Bradley C. Edwards http://www.isr.us/Downloads/niac_pdf/contents.html

http://www.liftport.com/ The LiftPort Group (LPG) is dedicated to building the first mass transportation system to open up access to the inner solar system (LEO, GEO, the Moon, Mars, and asteroids). We expect the Space Elevator will be at the heart of this revolutionary transportation service. By opening up broad-based access to Earth orbit and the inner solar system, LPG will help bring about the creation of entire new markets. Based in space commerce, these new markets can only become viable through inexpensive, routine access to the inner solar system. In short, we at the LiftPort Group believe that development of the space elevator is a crucial step in the development of space. Each company in the LiftPort Group contributes to the over-arching goal of developing the space elevator in two ways. First, each company contributes a portion of its revenue to enhancing the financial strength of LPG. Second, each company engages in activities (such as carbon nanotube research, financing, public awareness) which help bring the space elevator to reality.

Good Heavens! What a target for the nefarious to fly planes into. Sorry, I could not get the image out of my head...

It's a pretty ambitious project. Yeah, it would have to be equipped with Star Wars most likely.

We have to do something about getting back into space with all the programs we have underway already up there needing attention. We used the Russian space program to get into space again this week. This stairway would take a huge amount of time to build - not to mention how they maintain it...

Scientist Sees Space Elevator in 15 Years By CARL HARTMAN, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) wants to return to the moon and put a man on Mars. But scientist Bradley C. Edwards has an idea that's really out of this world: an elevator that climbs 62,000 miles into space. Edwards thinks an initial version could be operating in 15 years, a year earlier than Bush's 2020 timetable for a return to the moon. He pegs the cost at $10 billion, a pittance compared with other space endeavors. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&e=2&u=/ap/space_elevator Big space elevator conference going on this week.

what? i mean, how long would it take to go up the elevator? and where would it stop? just out in the middle of space...the doors open and it turns into a nightmare where there's no floor? *yikes*

Yeah, you don't want to caught in between floors.

I am NOT going to volunteer for this mission. I haste terrestrial elevators. I can't imagine a space one being any more comforting!

Especially if it had glass walls and you could see out...although it would be a cool view eventually.

Just pry my eyes open and maybe I can do it. After all down here they just tell you not to look down. Up there, there IS no down !! I'd just need to bury my face in someone on the way down . I wonder where it leaves your stomach! (I need spell check seriously !!)