Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 30, 2004

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A space elevator is a hypothetical elevator that connects the surface of a planet with space. It would permit sending objects and astronauts to space at costs only a fraction of those associated with current means. Constructing one would, however, be a vast project, and the elevator would have to be built of a material that could endure tremendous stress while also being light-weight, cheap, and easy to manufacture. Today's technology does not meet these requirements without an unreasonable cost associated with construction, but optimists hold that the space elevator might become a reality in the near future.

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