The Space Elevator

Ok, here's my comment on space elevator.

First, I love the concept and I see that it can be done as there's no natural
laws that forbid it. It will also lower the costs of transportation to space
very dramatically after all the deprecations are done.

However, it dose have some disadvantages. One, is that due to the exotic
nature of the technology, it will have to be build in isolated areas (such as
Kenya in Robert Heinlein's "Friday" as there will be a lot of people who will
fear such technology with "NIMBY" lawsuits. Two, you still need to make
cheaper rocketships to help build this thing and to provide service in case
of trouble. Three, you will also need to create new robot crews that will
check and repair the cables up and down. Four, you will have to gain air
rights from the ground and from the neigbors up to geostationary location to
be on safe side (la "The Man Who Sold the Moon"). Fifth, speaking of safe
side, you still need large insurance regardless of which transportation you
build. Lastly, but most importantly from cashflow pov, is the time it take
the car to travel which can be a few hours at best, which also implys the
size of the car in order to be economical and profitable (in a word, BIG).
Even then, there would be some cagos that are too large or too dangerous that
would requires specialized transportation. The best use for elevator to me
seems to be personal and luggage transporation.

It so happened that I was musing over such a concept recently, and my guts
tell me that a space elevator would be very very useful for the coach class
travelers such as college students and such who are not rich and need a
transportation system much like a bus and don't mind riding for hours. For
other people who needs to get somewhere in a hurry (such as business class or
first class) or express packet delievery, rocketships will still be needed as
the travel time can be in 20 min, given or taken. I don't see the elevator
and rocketships as competition because they can provide different services,
one for speed and one for low price, which mean they both can be very
profitable as the spacelines can charges higher prices and the elevator can
charge lower prices for different people. This is not either/or situation.
For space economy to thrive, we will need to create a network rich in varsity
of transportation for different needs, kinda like a ecosystem. So, there's
room for elevators, rocketships, traveling space hotels, mass drivers and
other stuff. I would even invest in all of them once I have enough assets
for this kind of high risk business.

Carl Mullin
www.ravenartstudio.com