Google X and the Space Elevator – and trickle-down economics…

Catching up on an older item here…

Over at the Space Elevator Reference, there was a post last November about a new product lab at Google, called Google X.  The original story referred to is here.

And, it didn’t take long to find the naysayers…  In the Times Science online edition of November 21st, columnist Jeffrey Kluger likens the Space Elevator to ‘…trickle-down economics’ – one of those ideas that ‘just won’t go away’.  He lists a long litany of reasons why a Space Elevator ‘probably never will’ exist.  He mentions the Coriolis effect, space debris, having to put the base station at sea, etc., etc., etc. and winds up estimating that the system will cost ‘$13.6 kazillion zillion’.  Sigh.

Maybe I’ll send him a copy of the ISEC Journal (real soon now, promise!) and our report on Space Debris Mitigation…

One thought on “Google X and the Space Elevator – and trickle-down economics…

  1. Michael Laine

    I was pretty annoyed by this article – for many reasons. So I posted a response in the comments. I soon had the most “liked” response out of 143 people.

    The comments are enlightening; you will want to read them. It kind of shows where people’s belief system lies. I was pretty pleased that eventually, Kluger recants some of his statements, and says “I hope you’re right”.

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