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Scientist Sees Space Elevator in 15 Years

From the article:

Edwards thinks an initial version could be operating in 15 years, a year earlier than Bush's 2020 timetable for a return to the moon. He pegs the cost at $10 billion, a pittance compared with other space endeavors.

"It's not new physics — nothing new has to be discovered, nothing new has to be invented from scratch," he says. "If there are delays in budget or delays in whatever, it could stretch, but 15 years is a realistic estimate for when we could have one up."

Edwards is not just some guy with an idea. He's head of the space elevator project at the Institute for Scientific Research in Fairmont, W.Va. NASA (news - web sites) already has given it more than $500,000 to study the idea, and Congress has earmarked $2.5 million more.

This sounds optimistic -- both the 15 year part and the $10 billion part. But let's say that he is right on both counts. If you can build one elevator, then you can build many of them. Let's assume that one of the elevators is used strictly for space tourism, with 30 people per day being carried into space. That's roughly 10,000 people per year. Over the course of 10 years, that's 100,000 people. $10 billion divided across 100,000 people is $100,000 per person -- quite a bit less than the $20 million per person being charged today. It would certainly change a lot of things...