At ZenArchery.com, the author despairs that civilization will be unable or unwilling to build a Space Elevator. Brian Dunbar, from LiftPort, posts his disagreement with the assessment.
The Space Elevator Blog
For scalable, inexpensive access to space…
I don’t despair of the building of the Space Elevator at all. On the contrary; I’ve written about it more than once in my newspaper column.
However, I think that it’s highly unlikely that mankind is going to use the Space Elevator to mine asteroids before resource shortages create massive global strife and lead to huge changes in our society. If you’ve been to a gas station in the past couple of years, you’ll know what I mean.
I am all in favor of the Space Elevator, and space-based energy resources. But I also try to be a pragmatist, and I just don’t see it as being a panacea. It just can’t happen quickly enough.
No one claims a space elevator is a panacea for anything.
However take note of what happens – or what has happened – when the transaction cost to get from here to there drops. People invent new ways to use the link, develop markets, prices for goods drop. Wealth is generated.
I admit I am a glass half-full guy. All of this is not a pannacea, just the way things work.
Joshua, thank you for the clarification. Are your newspaper columns online? If so, I’d like to, in this blog, add links to those columns you’ve written on the Space Elevator.