People's current bandwagon of choice seems to be the one with 'Save the Earth!' Emblazened on the front. Unfortunately getting on a bandwagon isn't going to help: we have to stop the bandwagon and fit hydrogen fuel cells or better still just get off and walk. In actual fact though the Earth doesn't need saving, it's really just human civilisation that does. The Earth would be equally happy were we to revert back to hunting and gathering or if we promptly detonated all our nuclear warheads simultaneously. The Earth itself is going to be here anyway until it is swallowed by our dying Sun (in about 5 billion years.)
Despite the warnings that our new global civilisation seems to be imploding like so many civilisations have done before, there is something fundamental pushing us forward towards this imminent destruction. Humanity itself is characterised by its dynamism, the striving towards improvement that leads from one era to the next, leaving behind the old ways and breaking to new ground. It seems that try as we might we cannot stop the progress. Human nature drives markets, markets drive technology, technology drives our demise yet also the possibility of our salvation.
Of all the great civilisations and they're grouped together by one characteristic - their relationship with the stars. From the ancients that built stonehenge as a connection to the heavens to the Egyptian pyramids aligned with the constellations, from the Greeks who predicted eclipses to the Copernican revolution that kickstarted the enlightemnent, from Newton to Einstein to the space programmes that define superpowers. Our greatest moments as a species have always stemmed from our curiosity and its symbiosis with our great mystery - the universe.
A Space Elevator is basically a satellite in a geo-synchronous orbit (one that stays above the same point on Earth) with a cable lowered to earth that can be climbed. One has not been built thus far. No existing material is strong enough to hold its own weight over the 35,000 km into orbit. The material currently showing most promise is the Carbon Nanotube. Fortunately Nanotechnology is a rapidly expanding sector with some estimates putting annual growth at over 30%.
To avoid the disaster that resulted from the Space Race i.e. exploration efforts ceasing, the people of Earth should build a space elevator together. There isn't going to be a loser in China's space race with itself but unless we unite as earthlings in our efforts to explore space, we'll only be fighting for the mining rights to the Moon and then Mars - whilst Earth's weather starts resembling that of Venus. This is a bandwagon we can all jump on together, no-one needs to fall off this wagon. Space is big enough for all of us.
The other necessary part to a space elevator is the counterweight in orbit. Not dissimilar to an ordinary global commmunication satellite, a satellite to which we could deliver parts and researchers to and fro would make the perfect laboratory for analysing the planet's atmosphere and climate. If civilisation is going to survive and not destroy all life on Earth then we need to become responsible managers of our own climate, stewards of the planet. Its only once we have achieved stability here on earth that we really have the right to go off gallavanting into the vacuum but we need a changeover, a transition period, and fortunately a United Nations Space Elevator project would facilitate both.
We are never going to solve the problem of managing our climate unless we deal with the meaning of life here on Earth first. I'm talking about the reason we're all alive today - our unending need to reproduce - the biggest part of our current problem. If Earth's population halved overnight, the climate crisis would halve in urgency. Killing half the people on Earth is no kind of answer but we can use our current level of technology to plan a future for us all that doesn't involve death.
Progress in Biotechnology will allow us to adapt ourselves to make colonisation of neighbouring planets easier and ease population pressure here on Earth. Computers are the only way to make sense of data on a planetary scale to save what we have left. A Space Elevator is the missing piece of the jigsaw of the future. We have the opportunity before us. All we have to do is take it.
