| PBBN43 said: We'll have buildings 100 Km tall (AKA the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space. Search "Kármán line".) |
We could be living in geostationary orbit and on the moon in 500 years. Space elevators aren't that far away. With current technology it is already theoretically possible to build one on the moon and even mars with their weaker gravitational field.
The elevator would be build from orbit by lowering a tether to the ground while extending a counterweight out into space. (Easy on the moon without an atmosphere, couple more hurdles to overcome trying it with earh)
Once we have those it will be easy to lift materials into orbit. Travel to the moon will be cheap between orbital stations.
If we can make strong enough materials by then it could eventually (say a 1000 years) result in a giant tower reaching out into space. 36.000km to orbit, and a bit beyond for the counterweight. Although it's probably not feasible to keep a structure like that filled with air under pressure, nor is living for a long time in low to zero gravity.
