The Space Elevator (SE) is the wildest ride being taken by contemporary science—yet its supporters say it's also the most sensible idea going, especially regarding environmental concerns. The Space Elevator would consist of ribbons of carbon-nanotube composite, each about three feet wide and thinner than paper, which would be anchored to a platform near the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, stretching 62,000 miles into deep space, and held in place by the centripetal force created by the Earth's rotation. At the ends of the ribbons would be space tourist centers; geosynchronous-level communications satellites; and spacecraft centers for launching explorations of the Moon, Mars, and other as yet untargeted portions of the galaxy. Mechanical lifters would travel up the ribbons, woven into cables, bringing satellites, supplies, and people.

The concept for the space elevator first emerged during the US/Soviet space race, and appeared in an article in Pravda by Yuri Artsutanov in 1960.

But not until 1979, when Arthur C. Clarke based his novel The Fountains of Paradise on the idea, was the SE brought to public attention. Since then, it has held the imaginations of people like Bradley C. Edwards, director of the Institute of Scientific Research, co-author of the SE bible, The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System (B.C. Edwards, 2002), and president of Carbon Designs, a company dedicated to developing the high-strength, yet easily maneuvered, carbon-nanotube composite ribbons on which the SE's existence depends. It was Edwards who convinced NASA to fund a 30-month feasibility study of the SE in the late 1990s, which brought the concept to the attention of a myriad of private technology and energy companies now involved in development. In a recent article in Discover magazine ("Going Up?" by Brad Lemley, July 2004), Edwards, who is bound to be considered the father of the SE if and when it is built (predicted by insiders to be within 15 years), revealed to the reporter a mysterious black fibrous material as being a length of carbon-nanotube ribbon taken from a five-kilometer spool of the stuff manufactured by his company. The ribbon technology is developing rapidly.

The development of the SE still contains space-race overtones (along with some sci-fi-style potential disasters like the ribbon's being struck by lightning, meteorites, or space debris). At the third annual Space Elevator Conference, held in Washington, DC last June, scientists discussed outer space law and treaties, and how to defend the SE from terrorist attacks.

Yet all political complexities and potential Star Wars scenarios aside, Edward and his supporters believe that, on a practical level alone, the overall safety, cost, and environmental improvements of the SE, compared to the current cost and danger of using space shuttles, make it well worth development. Estimated to cost $6-$10 billion to build, the SE would run on solar-powered climbing carriers that would drop the cost of transporting cargo into space—including satellites, spacecraft and, in the future, building materials, space habitat supplies, and space colonists—to $100 or even $50 a pound compared to the $10,000-$40,000 per pound we now spend to carry cargo via the space shuttle. And, say Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists and SE researchers Bryan Laubscher and Mervyn Kellum, the SE would not only alleviate the air pollution currently caused by the manufacture and launching of spacecraft, but would make it affordable to provide energy to the Earth without causing pollution through huge solar-energy gatherers installed on platforms as large as five square kilometers at the end of the SE.

Laubscher believes space can be used to help clean up the Earth's environment. "Look at the problems we have on the earth and the burning up of fossil fuels, threatening not only the problems of us running out of fossil fuels, but also their polluting the earth, and possibly driving a climate change," he says. "Here we suddenly have a solution to a major problem on the earth that might very well be enabled by the space elevator. Each solar satellite could collect as much energy per day as a working nuclear power plant. If we launch solar technology into space, we could close down power plants."

Getting the carbon-nanotube ribbon developed is the only difficult part of the project, says Laubscher. Once the solar cells are installed in space, it will be smooth sailing. "Up in space you get eight to 10 times the amount of power on your solar cells because of all the problems you have on earth—the weather, day-night cycle, and the angle of the sun to the solar rays. In space, you'd get 10 times more power than the existing solar cell technology down here."

Mervyn Kellum says the best analogy for what the SE will do for our lives is what happened to his grandparents in rural Texas, who benefited from the Rural Electrification Act. "Nobody knew what it would be like to have electricity," he says. "When they got it, they started to pump ground water, and to have better crops with more yield. Their lives improved dramatically in ways they couldn't have known beforehand. If you could have space-based solar power on a large scale, you not only make energy pollution free, abundant, and cheap in our own country, but you also beam power into places like Africa, giving people there cheap power and enabling them to figure out how to make life better. We'd no longer be dependent on dirty power sources, and the Space Elevator would have a huge impact on economies."

US Department of Energy predictions show that launching solar technology into space may become the only way to meet the depletion of natural energy sources, says Laubscher. "All of the current sources are pretty much going to flat-line; the only one whose usage will increase is coal, which isn't clean. If we could replace these finite resources with an infinite, alternative source for generating electricity with something other than coal, we'd be in a lot better shape."

Indeed, Edwards foresees the SE as allowing individual countries to not only become pollution-free but to maintain autonomy.  He says the technology will become so affordable that all countries will be able to launch solar satellites, beaming energy back to their own people, and using it to "build wells, pump water, and develop their economies."  Edwards is in touch with several private companies, including BP Solar, whose senior business development manager Bill Rever,  calls the SE project "very promising."

For Laubscher, the future is already here. "Four years ago, if I mentioned the Space Elevator to anybody, they'd say, 'What kind of crazy idea is that?' Now, once you describe it and talk about benefits like solar energy, people get very excited." With the exception of manufacturing ribbons of sufficient strength and length, he says, "the rest of the technology already exists. We could send up solar-powered satellites now if we put them aboard rockets, but that would be really expensive. But in 15 years we'll get there."

In the end, says Laubscher, the SE not only indicates a new way of thinking about space, but about Earth. "We just don't think about space being a place where we can solve our problems," he says. "But I'm really starting to develop a view now that that's exactly what space is."