Laser Powered Robot Cars

[Tuckerfan]

No, it’s not the subject for the sequel to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but how things will get to space on the space elevator.

If the space elevator dream comes true, robo-cars powered by laser light will roll on a carbon-nanotube ribbon stretching up tens of thousands of miles from Earth’s surface, carrying cargo and passengers on a monorail to the sky.

I also notice that from the private sector is really picking up.

“Private investment is now stepping up with more funding than NASA,” Bradley Edwards, an aerospace engineer who has emerged as the prime prophet of the space elevator age, told MSNBC.com in an e-mail. “Once the development is done, it looks like private investment will be much more readily available than the federal funding, and it is likely that the space elevator will go that way.”