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Skip 30 seconds in to see the bot slide up the wire. In a hundred years giant versions of this will be carrying 30 lb. orbital tomatoes back to Earth.
Five stars for Arthur C Clarkes new post-humous obituary: Died Of Shame.
So... they managed to tie a solar panel to a line and run said solar panel up thirty feet... Unless there's more to it, why isn't this just some twelve year old's science fair project?
There's more to it.
ask yourself, smellvin, why solar panels? and why facing away from the sun?
Awesome. And that's three years old! They seem to have made slow but steady progress since then: http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/ THIS is the sort of thing I expect with 2010 - literally and figuratively The Future! - a couple of months away.
Just this week they held another competition for it. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_space_elevator
I don't think connecting a wire/cable from the ground to space is such a good idea.
why
This just goes to show that we'll get to space any way we can. If NASA wont build us a starship, we'll take the fuckin' lift.
This will be an American creation, and it *will* be referred to as a space elevator not a lift
It's a moot point really, as "space lift" has already been copyrighted by Playtex