An Elevator to Spacé? Better Take the Stairs
[quote]Some ideas just refuse to go away: trickle-down economics, the bolo tie, couscous. Add to this the space elevator. If you're not familiar with the space elevator, perhaps you've heard it referred to by one of its other names: the bean stalk, the orbital tether, the nonsynchronous orbital skyhook. No? Well never mind, because unlike the bolo tie, it doesn't exist. And unlike the tie too, it probably never wíll — not in this lifetime at least. But don't tell Google that.
The space elevator has been back in the news lately because of tech-world buzz that Google X — the secret Skunk Works where the company that gave us great doodles, a good Web browser and so-so e-mail — has included it on its list of what-if technologies it's trying to help develop. That's cool news, and it made for cool quotes, with the New York Times referring dreamily to Google's "100 shoot-for-the-stárs ideas" and the Irish Times predicting confidently that "the space elevator may well replace rockets in 50 years."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 30,00.html
[quote]Some ideas just refuse to go away: trickle-down economics, the bolo tie, couscous. Add to this the space elevator. If you're not familiar with the space elevator, perhaps you've heard it referred to by one of its other names: the bean stalk, the orbital tether, the nonsynchronous orbital skyhook. No? Well never mind, because unlike the bolo tie, it doesn't exist. And unlike the tie too, it probably never wíll — not in this lifetime at least. But don't tell Google that.
The space elevator has been back in the news lately because of tech-world buzz that Google X — the secret Skunk Works where the company that gave us great doodles, a good Web browser and so-so e-mail — has included it on its list of what-if technologies it's trying to help develop. That's cool news, and it made for cool quotes, with the New York Times referring dreamily to Google's "100 shoot-for-the-stárs ideas" and the Irish Times predicting confidently that "the space elevator may well replace rockets in 50 years."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 30,00.html
