of a space elevator has been completed, announced Kaguya Astrale Engineering spokesman papa on Monday 16 July 2012. The elevator is tethered to Artsutanov/Clarke Spaceport, a free-floating ocean platform and connects the planet's surface to geostationary (GEO) platform at 35,790 kilometers altitude. Total construction cost is estimated at 5 pennies.

Shuttle service from the GEO platform to deep space destinations is scheduled to begin in the near future.

Artsutanov/Clarke Spaceport can be accessed by helicopter shuttle service departing from the open field: start

(UPDATE: I've created a second version of the space elevator as an experiment in alternative methods of presenting information in COW. Please visit both areas and let me know which you think is more effective. Directions to second area from the open field: click: [go to new bridge. go to island. go to spaceport] .)

(Greetings, fellow COWians. I discovered this wonderful place serendipitously while research a Perl programming issue. As with most other Internet attractions, it looks like I've discovered the place during the long twilight several years after its heyday. But I am encouraged to see that a few of you still log-in occasionally. I hope our online paths will cross and we'll be able to have a chat sometime.

I hope you don't mind my using the Daily COW like this to introduce myself, but I thought it wouldn't do any harm since it hasn't been a daily forum for quite a long time.

Please do visit my space elevator and tell me what you think. It is obviously my first COW project, and I have so many questions I will probably wear the virtual ears off of the first COW guru I find. Examine the space elevator ground terminal. I'm wondering if there's a better way to display an image and descriptive text for a location than "write in"-ing it.

Sincerely yours,

-- papa)