NASA image

can you imagine an elevator that is 225,000 times
taller than the Empire State Building?

NASA can -

and for years, it has been supporting research into
the systems and materials necessary for the con-
struction of such a structure - The Space Elevator

this colossal tower would dramatically cut the cost
of transporting materials and personal to and from
space

as was the case in the Space Race of the 1960s,
success of the mind blowing project depends on
technological breakthroughs -

and breakthroughs have been occurring; the most
important of these involving carbon nanotubes

Wikipedia defines a carbon nanotube as,

a one-atom thick sheet of graphite (called graphene)
rolled up into a seamless cylinder with diameter of the
order of a nanometer


a carbon nanotube - copyright Prof. Vincent H. Crespi

carbon nanotubes have many remarkable properties;
among them is the fact that they weigh 6 times
less than steel, and yet have 100 times the tensile
strength

this property is key to the construction of the Space
Elevator, since its shaft must be strong but light

the video below, courtesy of ISR and NASA, provides
greater detail and gives a sense of the of the pro-
ject's scale