Japan Gets on the Space Elevator Band Wagon

In another article that I found on the TimesOnLine from England, Japan is pouring lots of money into the research program for a elevator to space (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4799369.ece). Please check it out.

First envisioned by famed science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in his 1979 work The Fountains of Paradise, the idea of a cable 22,000 miles high along which platforms can cheaply transport people and supplies up out of the gravity well of planet earth and on out to the rest of the solar system. One end of the cable is anchored on the earth, the other end is anchored on a asteroid. Carbon Nanotube Fibre is the leading candidate for fulfilling the role of bringing the space elevator to reality from the pages of science fiction.