Yes, I plan on “giving my take” on this whole thing, fwiw…

Dr. Edwards of the Space Elevator Reference is claiming that much of the research LiftPort is saying needs to be done has been done already.

Unfortunately, the Liftport roadmap has little relevance to the space elevator development effort as a whole. Liftport apparently has not read or understood the literature on the space elevator and had no input from technical experts on the space elevator or large space or civil projects.

If Dr. Edwards is correct, then a Space Elevator by 2018 is very much possible (if not sooner). Would you mind taking a look at the full article and giving your take on the whole project?

I haven’t taken a look at their project plan yet - that’s my project for this weekend. I’m hoping to find some critical task that I can help shorten.

The bad news is that LiftPort has now come to the conclusion that it’s going to take longer (13 years longer to be exact) to get the first one functional then first thought. I’ll be too old by then - guess I’m going to have to get involved and find some ways to shorten the development of this thing…

It’s not how old you are that counts, but rather will you go up that matters….

As far as speeding it up goes…we could always attempt at winning the lotto and donating towards LiftPort.

With just two weeks left before the Space Elevator Games in New Mexico, advocates of the space elevator concept have come out with two publications outlining their ideas and the challenges ahead. One is a revised road map for building what is basically…