Battleangel

HighLift Systems. Seriously cool stuff if you ask me. And probably achievable with the next generation of high tech fabrics. Note that they propose a ribbon and not a tether as such. Maybe, in the light of recent events, companies like this will receive the funding they need to take their projects from drawing board to reality. Just remember that they aren’t the only players in this game.

And it’s not only about the ribbon and elevator itself but also about the nifty energy distribution system. The energy for the actual elevator will be beamed using a free-electron laser and received using photocells. 100,000 km of ribbon and a elevation speed of 200 km/h would translate into a 9h ascent roughly. The project seems viable. The ribbon would have a 20,000 kg capacity elevator and have a 2 square millimeter cross-sectional area, be 1 meter wide and microns thick, on average. The question is just how to make the ribbon last in the destructive environment. The thing is that the proposed high tech fabrics aren’t here yet and the prototypes certainly aren’t field tested. Not to speak of the protective coating.
Just building the oceanic platform is a big enough challenge. Using an old oil platform is one thing but constructing something the size of half a dozen aircraft carriers is something entirely different.