3 ms·

But the biggest cost would be the elevator itself, rather than the platform required to hold it. But still, it sounds like something from a Bruce Sterling novel

• dstorrs 17y ago
  > But the biggest cost would be the elevator itself, Of course. But the cost of the elevator itself is essentially fixed, regardless of where you build it. The only things that vary are the cost of the location under the anchor point and how optimal that location is. There isn't a tremendous amount of land on or near the equator (cf http://www.wall-maps.com/World/PetersProjection-over.gif http://www.wall-maps.com/World/PetersProjection-over.gif); most of Earth's landmass is well up in the northern hemisphere. You've basically got Brazil, part of Africa, and Indonesia. When we want to build our (2nd, 3rd, ..., nth) space elevator, we're going to need to start looking at ocean mounts. Plus, as I mentioned, it has some built-in advantages.