>From Slashdot:
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/05/1914246&mode=nested&tid=134&tid=160
It's rather lengthy so I won't post the whole thing here, just a teaser:
In their new book The Space Elevator, Bradley C. Edwards and Eric A. Westling
present
a compelling argument, backed up with a great deal of quantitative analysis on
both
scientific and economic grounds, that a space elevator is near-term-feasible.
The authors
argue that carbon nanotube fibers are both strong and light enough that a
100,000 km
elevator, constructed of a 2m wide carbon nanotube "ribbon," could be
constructed in 10
years for a cost of US $6 billion, and be capable of lifting a 13-ton payload
to
geosynchronous orbit once every few days. If feasible, it would present a
stunning
breakthrough in space accessibility, and likely usher in a new age of space
development
and exploration.
-bryon
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