There was an article in today's Wall Street Journal regarding 'space elevators.' I find it hard to believe that such a device could be flawlessly built, but it would be fun to try (from Wikipedia):
A space elevator is a proposed megastructure designed to transport material from a celestial body's surface into space, first conceived by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Many different types of space elevators have been suggested. They all share the goal of replacing rocket propulsion with the traversal of a fixed structure via a mechanism not unlike an elevator in order to move material into or beyond orbit.
...The most common proposal is a tether, usually in the form of a cable or ribbon, spanning from the surface to a point beyond geosynchronous orbit. As the planet rotates, the inertia at the end of the tether counteracts gravity, and also keeps the cable taut. Vehicles can then climb the tether and get in orbit without the use of rocket propulsion. Such a structure could theoretically permit delivery of cargo and people to orbit with transportation costs a fraction of those of more traditional methods of launching a payload into orbit.
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