Bye bye Space Elevator

If your talking about 40 to 50 thousand feet being reason able, yes.
any thing above that the air is a bit too thin to support much of any
weight. something you have to remember. the bigger the balloon, the
heavier the envelope needed to hold the air in. when you get higher,
there is less lift. at a certain point, it becomes the matterial that
is putting pressure on the gas, not the air outside. once you reach
that point, going higher is all but impossible.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, wrote:
>
> so we agree they can carry substantial payload at reasonable
altitudes?
>
> neat stuff out there among heavy lifters and such... too bad
Europeans went BK on there recent attempt to get one started...