Space: The Final Frontier

I may be the only space geek on this board but it's been pretty prominent in the news recently. Any one have any thoughts on these stories?

The Space Elevator (http://space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_040629.html)

"Leading experts are meeting this week to take a longing look at the idea of a space elevator. Anchored in space a ribbon 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) long would be made of carbon nanotubes. A "climber" would haul cargo, as well as passenger modules up and down the length of ribbon."

SpaceShipOne (http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/SS1_touchdown_040621.html)

"The first non-governmental rocket ship flew to the edge of space June 21 and was piloted to a safe landing on a desert airport runway in Mojave, California"

Cassini (http://www.space.com/cassini/)

"Cassini's Journey to Saturn"

no, i promise you i'm definately a geek (EE major)... i liked the idea of floating ballons up instead of an elevator, its much cheaper (you still need a rocket for the last bit, but a floating platform and supply line could be as much as 10-25 times less expensive than our current system)

I also think they still havent gotten c60 (carbon nanotubes) to grow long enough for an elevator yet... people have been talking about that thing for about 20 years now i think :)

Spaceshipone is truly cool, and a huge step foward ;) And as much distrust as i have for microsoft, paul allen has really given a lot of money to worthy causes ;) (25mill to scaled composited for SS1 and whiteknight)

Anything about space, the planets, the galaxy, UFO's, etc. fascinates me to no end.

The whole concept of the universe is mind blowing when you try to wrap your brain around it.

The space elevator sounds totally cool (I love popular science stuff). Of course, everything sounds cooler if you put "space" in front of it:

pants vs. space pants

invaders vs space invaders

cheetos vs space cheetos

you get the idea...