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

[MeganC]

https://nypost.com/2026/08/31/science/first-space-elevator-a-66000-mile-cable-to-the-cosmos-closer-than-ever-before-as-scientists-make-breakthrough/

(Excerpt)

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.

[MeganC]

It would be a huge economic advantage for a nation to build this. That nation would control cheap access to space.

[BobfromWB]

It would be a huge economic advantage for a nation to build this. That nation would control cheap access to space.

It would also help the atmosphere with far less hazardous and toxic chemicals from rocket exhausts from mega-constellations of satellites like StarLink and StarMind.

Done correctly, it could also alleviate the ever-growing mass of space junk in the most usable LEO.

Satellites could be taken up to the end point and fired off into orbit from there.

[Smokin Joe]

Only problem is you'd have to keep the current pile of junk in space from cutting the cord.

[Hoodat]

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.

Rather than pulling itself up, it will be pulling the counterweight down.

[Idiot]

Never going to happen.  How would they even get it up there?  The upper winds would destroy it.  Just not feasible.

[MeganC]

Never going to happen.  How would they even get it up there?  The upper winds would destroy it.  Just not feasible.

Let's see, Naysayers over the centuries have crapped on many advances such as:

Telescopes
Electricity
Steam engines
Balloons
Ironclad warships
Submarines
Telephones
Gatling guns
Paper currency
Radio and radio telegraph
Computers
Artificial intelligence
Automobiles
Aircraft
Diesel electric power
Nuclear fission
Putting a man in space
Putting a man on the moon
Putting things in orbit
Eradicating smallpox

Pretty much every advance by humanity has been dismissed by people who lack vision. The people who have vision have had to endure those dismissals along with mockery and ridicule.

And which group turns out to be spectacularly wrong in the long run?