I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of space elevators. When you first hear about it, it sounds ridiculous, but then when you look a little more deeply into how it would be done and how much energy it would save in moving objects into orbit, the question becomes “Why aren’t we already doing this?”
Well, there are a few minor technical details to work out. But scientists around the world are working at it. This article contains the prediction that we will see this happen in our lifetimes.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/11/05/space.elevator/index.html
