Space is not a long long way up. Space is only 50 miles away.

Space is, however, a extremely difficult to get to; the transaction costs of shipping ’stuff’ there affect everything related to space. What the space elevator could do is to drop these transaction costs to the floor.

Estimates vary but a good figure to use is that it costs $10,000 per pound to orbit. We think we can bring that down to $400 per pound with the first system. Things get loose and interesting - and very hard to predict - after that.