A new space race is officially under way, and this one should have the sci-fi
geeks salivating. The project is a "space elevator," and some experts now
believe that the concept is well within the bounds of possibility && maybe
even within our lifetimes. A conference discussing developments in space
elevator concepts is being held in Japan in November, and hundreds of
engineers and scientists from Asia, Europe and the Americas are working to
design the only lift that will take you to the one hundred-thousandth floor.

Despite these developments, you could be excused for thinking it all sounds
a little far-fetched. Indeed, if successfully built, the space elevator would
be an unprecedented feat of human engineering.

A cable anchored to the Earth's surface, reaching tens of thousands of
kilometers into space, balanced with a counterweight attached at the other
end is the basic design for the elevator. Although the Japanese association
has set a time frame of the 2030s to get a space elevator under construction
and developments are moving quickly -- Hoffman acknowledges that it could be
a little further away than that.

"I don't know if it's going to be in our lifetime or if it's 100 or 200 years
away, but it's near enough that we can contemplate how it will work."


NASA is holding a $4 million Space Elevator Challenge to encourage designs for
a successful space elevator. [source]