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05-01-09 Getting into space by broomstick

The prospects for the space elevator have been shaken up with a simple prototype using a broomstick.Age-Raymond Riise of the European Space Agency demonstrated the device at a space elevator conference in December.The project could see a 100,000km long tether anchored to the Earth as a "lift into space" for cheaper space missions.While the approach could solve one of the idea's great technical hurdles,many issues remain,according to conference attendees.First mooted by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895,the space elevator idea has captured imaginations as what would be the greatest space mission ever conceived.The idea rests on making use of the outward centrifugal force supplied by the Earth's rotation.Imagine fixing a short length of string to a football and spinning it - the string flies outward and remains taut.If the centrifugal force provided by the Earth is balanced with its gravitational force - making use of a space elevator cable or tether whose centre of mass is at geostationary orbit - the tether would be held taut permanently,providing a means to propel people and cargo into space