[Captain Beyond]

Thanks for the links. I have read a bunch of sci-fi books that use the space elevator in their plots. Some interesting but others really take a lot of liberties with the physics of actually doing it. I understand they are fiction but the topic is always interesting to see how they over come some of the problems. All in all some creative ways of dealing with space travel come out of them.

[SunkenCiv]

I’m not in the camp that thinks this can even work; either the whole machine will be pulled apart, or will all end up bunched up at or a little below geostationary orbit. And it has nothing to do with the strength of the materials. However, there’s also a topic (I think it was in that last) regarding the strongest material known, nanofibers, and how they aren’t strong enough (assuming such a machine were possible in the first place). I was also amused by the fact that the nanotubes are such good conductors, you know what that would mean to one of these hypothetical constructs...