First ‘space elevator’ — a 66,000-mile cable to the cosmos— closer than ever before as scientists make breakthrough

NY Post ^ | 8/31/26 | Chadwick Moore

[Libloather]

On a visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston last week, President Trump promised American astronauts would establish a permanent presence on the Moon before pushing forward to Mars.

“Our nation will conquer … this vast frontier that we have before us … We will explore it, we will tame it, and we will win it,” he said of America’s present “golden age” of space exploration.

But researchers thinking of truly big ideas say we’ll never get there with today’s inefficient chemical rocket technology. And they point to an important breakthrough.

“We’re really pushing for permanent infrastructure, like a bridge replacing ferries to cross a river,” Pete Swan, president of the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), a nonprofit research and advocacy hub, told The Post.

It’s a simple yet mind-bending concept: an ultra-strong electrified cable running from a point on the ground at Earth’s equator, extended out beyond geostationary orbit (GEO), where a counterweight will float in space keeping it taut. Vessels then climb the cable to deliver goods, people and machines, passing through the atmosphere and into space.

“The beauty is that raising it with electricity saves our atmosphere from pollution, it doesn’t leave any debris along the way and it will be routine, daily, inexpensive, safe. It’s gonna be a bridge to space.”

Crazy as it sounds, the engineering checks out, according to researchers who spoke to The Post.

However, the bottleneck to the space elevator idea has always been the tether material, because it must be scalable, 100 times stronger than steel, exceptionally lightweight and capable of efficient spooling in order to get the whole thing in place.

Next month, the ISEC is set to announce they have their most promising candidate yet—a two-dimensional material called polycrystalline graphene, already widely used in the consumer electronics industry.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Outdoors; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: breakthrough; cable; scientists; space; spaceelevator

[Pontiac]

International Space Elevator Consortium selects polycrystalline graphene for 66,000-mile elevator

Engineers in South Korea just made a 1,000-meter segment of this graphene tether, a huge step forward.

If completed, the elevator could send cargo to orbit using electric climbers in about two weeks and even cut Mars travel time down to just 61 to 120 days depending on planetary positions at launch time.

But there are still big hurdles: protecting the tether from space junk and gathering $15 billion in funding.

Pete Swan is hopeful but says it will be decades before we see this sci-fi idea become reality.

[Ditto]

Then what would happen if the poles shifted and the cable was no longer on the equator ...

The (magnetic) poles can shift all they want but the Equator will not change at all. You would have to change the axis of the Earth’s rotation to do that. Do that, and the Space Elevator is the least of your problems.

[telescope115]

Yes! That was quite a scene. Episode One, I believe, or Episode Two maybe ….

I’m still waiting for a Ringworld movie. The Mandalorian tv series has already depicted one.

[montag813]

Good news, they just hired the first intern...

[rarestia]

The idea of space elevators has been around for a long time. When carbon nanofibers were discovered, the possibility became a bit more real.

The biggest problem will be location. Last I read anything on it, they were positing off of the west cost of South America as the most ideal location due to the relatively calm weather conditions.

I’m sure the eggheads are crunching the numbers, but I’m curious about the implications on the rotation of the planet. We’ve been spinning the same for millenia. If you add a weight on one side of a spinning globe, you will naturally skew the point of rotation. It might not impact our orbit, but I suspect it will play some role on the planet’s core.

[caddie]

What about squirrels?

[TheThirdRuffian]

“ a two-dimensional material ”

Yeah, I’m calling BS.

[telescope115]

The Mandalorian series in one of its episodes shows a Ringworld, not a space elevator. Just wanted to clarify. Haste makes for sloppy sentences. Not that I’m any expert, lol.

[I want the USA back]

What happens if the cable breaks and someone is going up/down the “elevator”?

[telescope115]

He looks constipated…..the explosives strapped around his body will clear that up.

[CIB-173RDABN]

Arthur C. Clarke wrote about this idea in “The Fountains of Paradise” in 1979.
—
I remember reading a story with this idea, but forgot when and by who. Thank you

[hinckley buzzard]

Yes the idea has been around in pop science for decades. The engineering problems sound insurmountable with present technology, but we’ll see.

[Vermont Lt]

The constant friction on the “cable” would be crazy as well.

The whole thing is an interesting mind exercise, but I think we are a long ways from doing this. I imagine I will be watching it happen from the “high ground.”

[Carl Vehse]

The cable idea is as phony as the ads interlaced on conservative news websites.

[butlerweave]

Think about it , it’s an impossible a myth sounds very stupid ,LOL

[montag813]

This couple is excited for the space elevator

[Delta 21]

The weight of the machine works in the gravity zone would be too ‘heavy’ to make this work. We dont have anything that could handle that load. This would require new technology fer sher. Maybe a couple dozen federal contracts.

[Swirl]

What happens when its run into by an airplane? Ops?

Also would not want a 65,000 mile cable whipping around in the atmosphere after it broke lose!

[dangus]

This would be geostationary; a counterweight above the main station would hold the main station in orbit. The physics of this workout just fine; except obviously the ability of creating a material that could be so many miles above the Earth, and yet not weigh enough to pull itself apart. And that’s the whole point of the article is their closing the gap on creating such a material. Of course unspooling such a material back down to earth, making it weatherproof, and so many other challenges are actually much more a short-range problem then worrying about the poles drifting. And to be clear we are talking about poles very very slowly drifting on geological time scales, not to be confused with the magnetic pole reversals.

[mjustice]

I’ve known about this idea for at least 30 years now, and the issue has always been about the material used for the cable - its chemical composition, its strength, and its weight. If they’ve figured out the right material to use, it’s a step in the right direction.