Scientists envision inflatable alternative to tethered space elevator
An inflatable free standing tower could one day carry equipment and tourists 20 kilometers above Earth, and it could be completed much sooner than a cable-based space elevator, say researchers at York University in Toronto, Canada.They envision a giant tower assembled with a series of modules made up of Kevlar-polyethylene composite tubes that would be made rigid by inflating them with a lightweight gas such as hydrogen or helium.