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A Canadian company, Thoth Technology Inc, has been awarded a patent for an inflatable space elevator.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/space-elevator-could-lift-people-12-miles-up-in-the-air/
A Canadian space company was recently awarded a patent for a space elevator that would reach about 12 miles (20 kilometers) above the Earth's surface.
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According to Thoth Technology Inc., the company that was awarded the patent, the U.S. patent allows for an elevator that would be 30 percent cheaper than the fuel required by a conventional rocket. Also, the system would be fully reusable, further reducing costs, the company said.
"Astronauts would ascend to 20 km by electrical elevator," inventor Brendan Quine said in a statement. "From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower for refueling and reflight."
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Wednesday August 19 2015, @10:37AM
Most of the science-fictional space elevators like Clarke's are based on the principle that the centre of mass of the tower is in geosynchronous orbit. Hint: that's not 12 miles, more like 20,000 miles. The counterweight is there to move the centre of mass up without having to make the thing 40,000 miles long (although ISTR one of the SF stories did that so spacecraft could slingshot off the end).
However, if Thoth Technology ever actually build their tower, I hope poetic justice ensues and it gets known as Clarke's Tower rather than the Thoth Tower :-)