Space Elevator - An Introduction

The space elevator is a concept for enabling cheap access to space. A tether is fixed to an anchor on the Earth's surface and stretches vertically upwards, 62,000 miles into space. The tether is held up by the centripetal force exerted by a counter-weight at the far end as the Earth spins.

History

The idea of a space elevator is as old as mankind itself. Read the bible for the story of the tower of babel. In recent times the first serious scientific analysis of a space elevator was by the Russian XXX in the early 20th century. The idea was first brought to the attention of the western scientific community by XXX in 1969. A year later the concept was popularised by Arthur C. Clarke in his book "The fountains of paradise".