Imagine beings that live at the bottom of a deep well. Looking up, they glimpse a few stars, while instruments that they have sent above reveal a vast, enticing macrocosm. A few have ridden thundering missiles out of the well, but only for short times and at great risk and expense to themselves. They are seemingly trapped, waiting for a destiny that never arrives.Those beings, of course, are us, and the well is made from gravity. But getting out may be as straightforward as riding an elevator, if only there were a way to build it. Unlikely though it sounds, that may one day be possible.Building a space elevator is almost within our capability, a few scientists and engineers are now saying. And with it, our access to space -for putting satellites into orbit, heading out into the solar system or using it as a new tourist destination -could suddenly become cheap and safe. Elevator enthusiasts have the basic physics all worked out, they think they know the pitfalls and the solutions, and they have narrowed their quest to building the elevator from a material that has already been discovered. They are dreamers, for sure, but humans once imagined things that seemed equally impossible, be it a railway that crosses continents or a globally linked network of calculating machines with a terminal in every home.
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