October 18, 2008

Space Elevator

A few weeks ago, the Japanese announced they are getting serious about a space elevator. The Russians[1] may be stirring too.

Since the Japanese are currently the world's best engineers, they might pull this off.

It would probably be a game-changer insofar as the world balance of power goes. Accordingly, the USA doing it would be preferable afaic, but that's almost beside the big-picture point. What is essential is that humanity do it.

Just as during the chaos and pessimism of the 60s and 70s, the building blocks of the information era were being created,...?
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[1] Although Tsiolkovsky had the original idea of a space elevator, the headline of this piece is unsupported by the text. I don't see corroboration that the Japanese will subcontract manufacturing to the Russians.

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