The hurdles in building a Space elevator are not just limited to the availability and the cost of a novel material. It's well understood that we need a strong yet light weight material to create a cable that starts from the ground and reaches the geo-synchronous orbit. A likely candidate is available in the form of Carbon Nanotubes. However abundant and cheap manufacturing of this material is not the only challenge. Here's one thought.
Let’s talk about this problem in the light of the history of advancements in Software technologies.
The software programs that we write today (AI, Video games, Content creation tools) are orders of magnitude more sophisticated than their punch card counterparts from 60 years ago. One could say that this difference of complexity is comparable to the difference between constructing a Space elevator and building a bridge. What allowed us to make such exponential progress in the development of software systems?
Consider this. We do not spend any time in actually building a Software. Do we? It’s an automated process. We just fire off the compilers and linkers and the Software is ready. We take it for granted. Not only can we build the program for free, we can also execute it to see how it will behave in the real world. Most of the development time is spent in designing the architecture of the software, followed by programming and debugging. Software is an information product and we have mastered the skill to build it at zero cost according to a set of instructions (i.e. the code)
However, when it comes to building a skyscraper, the project is far from over once the Architect has designed it. The actual job is done by the civil engineers and the construction workers. The concrete and steel is not going to self assemble itself into a skyscraper. But what if it could? What if the molecules of construction materials could self-assemble themselves (with the help of nanobots maybe) according to the design instructions of the Architect. If the final result is not desirable, they could be commanded to disassemble and rearrange themselves to follow a new set of instructions. What if we could manipulate the molecules of matter the same way as we manipulate the bits of information? Automatically and at zero cost.
Our ability to create increasingly complex software systems has progressed so rapidly, because there’s no cost involved in actually building the final software product. If we are writing a brand new algorithm, we just write lines of code, compile it into an executable and see if it produces desired output. The cost of failure is almost zero.
When we can automate the assembly of the matter, we will be able to have the ability of rapidly prototyping the physical structures. That will bring the gigantic projects like building a Space elevator within out reach.
We need automated matter manipulation at zero cost.