Will the space elevator rise?

Posted: Friday, July 18, 2008 7:38 PM by Alan Boyle

Pat Rawlings / NASA file

Click for video: Get a look at the future, as seen by advocates  of the space elevator concept.

If space elevators work out the way the idea's advocates hope, sending payloads into orbit would become as routine as, say, sending a shipment on a freight train - except that the train would travel straight up for hundreds or thousands of miles, powered by laser beams.

But will such a "railroad to the sky" ever be built? That's the big question hanging over the 2008 Space Elevator Conference, taking place this weekend on Microsoft's Seattle-area campus. And considering that this is an event primarily attended by elevator enthusiasts, you may find some of the answers surprising.
One of the biggest advocates of the concept, the late science-fiction seer Arthur C. Clarke, said back in 1979 that the first space elevator would be built "about 50 years after everyone stops laughing."

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