Japan looking to beat US to building a space elevator

Japan's experts claim they will soon have a space elevator. And they claim they will be able to do it on a bafflingly low budget -- a trillion yen ($9.5B USD). However, the claim is slightly more believable when you consider Japan's leadership in precision engineering and material science.

This does sound very interesting, with Japans expertise in large scale construction and robotics I can see them easily beating off competition from other countries. The space elevator seems to be getting a lot closer now Japan is involved. This is a concept which will allow Japan to bypass the expensive and high risk rocketry access to space, and allow them to transfer large amounts of cargo, and passengers into space at a very low cost, while also being a lot safer.

Source: www.dailytech.com...

[edit on 24-9-2008 by rufi0o]

It won't be safe at all unless they get everyone else's permission to deorbit every single low earth orbit satellite and spacecraft first. That's the main reason why I think the space elevator will never happen, you'll never get every other nation to agree to it. They would essentially be dependent on you for any access to space (although higher orbits would still be viable, the risk of not making it to a high enough safe orbit would be too great), access you could hypothetically revoke at any time, and at the same time your elevator would be a giant target for any rogue states.

[edit on 24-9-2008 by ngchunter]