Earth Space Elevators are not close and may never be | NextBigFuture.com

Peter Swan, president of International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), was quoted as saying that an Earth Based Space elevator could cost close to $10 billion to build and could reduce the cost of putting things into orbit from roughly $3,500 per pound today to as little as $25 per pound. There is some carbon nanotube bundles that would be strong enough at 80 GPA of strength. However, there is less of this material than you would use to floss your teeth. There will be a space experiment called the Space Tethered Autonomous Robotic Satellite–Mini elevator, or STARS-Me. It was devised