"Joe Delphi" wrote in
ink.net:

What the heck is a "space elevator"?

Did you think of Googling first? There really is a lot of information on
this topic available on the web.

In the UPI new release about Pres. Bush's bold new space initiative,
it said that the committee which layed out his new policy investigated
everything from snip to space elevators to snip, more stuff.

It's a cable in geostationary orbit, extended down to the surface of the
Earth. The other end of the cable is either extended upward, or a
counterweight put at the end, such that the center of mass of the cable is
above geostationary orbit. This keeps the cable in tension.

This allows spacecraft to "climb" into orbit without using rockets. The
materials engineering challenges are immense, however.


--
JRF

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