A slim cable for a space elevator has been built stretching a mile into the sky, enabling robots to scrabble some way up and down the line.
LiftPort Group, a private US company on a quest to build a space elevator by April 2018, stretched the strong carbon ribbon 1 mile (1.6 km) into the sky from the Arizona desert outside Phoenix in January tests, it announced on Monday.
The company's lofty objective will sound familiar to followers of NASA's Centennial Challenges programme. The desired outcome is a 62,000-mile (99,779 km) tether that robotic lifters – powered by laser beams from Earth – can climb, ferrying cargo, satellites and eventually people into space.
link me2012, February 25, 2006 at 12:03:00 AM AEDT
Tutankhamen teaches scientists a lesson
There is no record of white wine in Egypt until the 3rd century AD, and yet 1600 years prior to then, teenage king Tutankhamen stashed a few bottles of it in his tomb.
This is typical of the problems of modern science, they presume something didn't happen or exist until the evidence turns up.
