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Well, you see, I don't have a large chunk of diamond to work with

Seriously, wouldn't a diamond get less scratches than any other material in the same situation? So, yes, I was wrong to say it can only be scratch by itself, but would saying that it's the hardest to scratch material be correct?

Well.. a humongous elevator.. that would be a real big terrorist target, if it were destroyed somehow.. anything it landed on would be destroyed also. Also, wouldnt it look wierd if the earth had a HUGE elevator just sticking out of it?

Let's all laugh at wrathlord7 for his ignorance! HAHAHA!!

Not really, I made an earlier post mathematically proving that a small metor going at 40,000 km/hour and about 1,000 kg would not break the tower. I doubt that any terrorist has a bomb powerfull enough to destroy the tower. Most probably the UN would have troops and high security there.
A huge elevator sticking out? Not really, it'll be a great symbol of mankind's achievements.

I bet they're going to consider it as the 8th World Wander.

Land on Earth? Heck, be worried that it'll float away into the sky.

Now that you said that SpaceBoy, what about the International Space Station currently being built? They would have to modify it's orbit around the earth to make sure that it won't collide against the tower.

I'm pretty sure the phsyic and math geniuses, and find a way to change it's course. Or they could just build the tower in or out of the station's course.

In a new Science News magazine it had a small article on how they just made tiny carbon nanobrushes. It shows that scientists are learning how to manipulate the carbon nanotubes and control how they grow. The bristles are extremely dense and create a tiny nanometer-scale pile of stuff.

Well, orbits are really easy to predict. For rocket scientists and computers anyways. So either place the tower in a location that the ISS won't collide with, which can be difficult since I don't know what would be the optimum locations would be, or just use disposable thrusters to adjust the orbit of it. Of course, that will take a few years to plan, build and implement, along with a decent chunk of money, but heck, it would be nothing compared to building this tower in the first place.

And my prediction for the ISS is this - it will rip apart into two main pieces, American built and Russain built. The American built piece will unexpectantly fall back towards Earth, and smash into Australia, hopefully this time kill something. The Russian piece will light on fire, and then would be converted to a giant floating advertising sign, which the Russian will charge companies $5 to use.

Being a sci fi nerd; I've read many aritcles on this type of thing.

The carbon and steel erquired to make something like this would have to be mostly mined from asteroids. It'd also have to be contructed in space, as there is no way you can make something this large on Earth and have it be straight; or get it upright for that matter.

I do not think this'd be done for at least a hundred years though. It wouldn't be financially beneficial to do something like this anytime soon.

As for terrorist activiy, terrorism could easily dislodge the roots of such a thing on Earth surface, but any break would do little damage. Most of the strain would be t the aerosynchronis point. The reason such a thing would be possible is it'd be balanced between the centrifugal force actigng on it from the rotation pushnig it outward, and Earth gravity. Any berak below the aerosynchronis point would cause the upper end to be flung outward into space. It'd really screw things up, but at least it wouldn't collapse on the planet. Only if a break were to happen very high up, say at a ballast point at the tip would the thing come crashing down. However, most of it would burn up and only the lower portions would cause significant damage.

For meteors further out where they won't burn up, it wouldn't be too difficult to see them before they hit. Rockets aligned along the entire structure would allow such a thing to sway out of the asteroids path. Most damage would be caused on Earth. it would need a good solid base, but to find a place to make a huge elongated hole downwards to atach something liek this would be very difficult, it would dislodge itself in the rock. Magnets would be the best bet, if you could get a magnet strong enough to help balance it in its base.

This'd be one helluva lightning rod though. You'd want this to definately be in the Pacific Ocean as it would be unsafe anywhere else from possible collapses or lighting strikes. It'd have to eb hardened against burns from lightning along the bottom portion of this.

On the other side of things, carbon nanotubes if they could be produced in incredible bulk and attached very strongly would be bloody string and very resilient. They wouldn't shatter anywhere near the amount of force needed to shatter diamond, you'd need one helluva explosion.

Overall, I think this'd be very difficult and unbenefical in the near future. It would be an effective military base, need a huge amount of rockets aligned along its spine. The material would also be difficult to manufacture and assemble, it would have to be done by complex machinery in space for possibly decades. Then you have the process of lowering it into the atmosphere and into some kind of socket or base. But perhaps in a hundred or so years if extracting resources for asteriouds becomes vital and people do attempt to set up scientific colnies on places like Mars, or even terraform it, this could be brilliant, although difficult to pull off. Just have to smooth things over politically to decide who gets control of it, as anyone could use it as a very advantageous military base and rain death to people from orbit with very little trouble.

I guess it will only be made after we have achieved world peace then. Before then we will all kill ourselves over it, and then the one who controls it will screw over the whole world with it's advantageous military base.

That would bea big problem, yeah, . With out current political situation and countries not exactly all being on friendly terms with each other, people would have nothing to lose trying to destroy something like this if they aren't in control of it because otherwise there's the possiblity that they'll get completely obliterated by nukes coming down from orbit. Also, if people were capable of moving the asteroids needed for mining as well as one used for some kind of ballast at the tip, then someone could theoretically launch one into teh atmosphere at a precise speed and angle so as to obliterate a certain city, or at least cause a lot of damage in a certain country.

I would think the experienced people who are a part of this project would know all of that. Seriously, it may not take a rocket scientist to figure out that this tower might break, but these people are literally rocket scientists, thus probably knowing more than we as a group would know. I say that if they think it's a good idea, people should most likely trust them.

hes right BUT u can use rockeetzs 1 time so that means .. well .. I DONT KNOW!

If space travel becomes more commonplace in the next 100 years, then the ability to send down massive amounts of resources such as metals and send up people and equipment without expensive fuel would cover the cost exponentially given enough time. Imagine being able to supply thousands of tons of new metals per year for Earth, and also launch heavy machinery and experimental space ships without having to make them small enough to fit in a shuttle and hope the launch doesn't mess up. Colonising Mars would be much easier if resources could be traded between the planets at a large rate, and ships trading materials would rarely have to waste fuel slowing down in Earth's atmosphere with tons of metals and lifting back up with a lot of machnery, water, and supplies.

Also, they say that many spent rocket canisters and whatnot now litter space, and it's almost to the point of hazardous already.

Less than 10,000 I assure you, and that's still a small amount. Space isn't some compact trash can, 10,000 of those wouldn't even circle the Earth, so I'm sure that space has enough "space" for as long as the human race exists.

It's not like going to block out the sun or anything, but it still poses a risk to spacecraft, albeitedly a small one.

Another thing with this elevator, since it would use carbon nanotubes, and a tremendous amount, wouldn't that be good and use up the excess carbon?

I read a while ago in an old National Geographic and it was about the carbon cycle and the greenhouse affect and how theres a lot of carbon and they don't know where some of it goes, but they think some carbon goes into the ocean.

Here's the article online version I found:

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0402/feature5/