To build the Death Star, we'll need this space elevator

Getting stuff into space cheaply will make it less of a frontier

Space elevator
(Image credit: (AP Photo/LiftPort Group))

Last year, I wrote about why we should make massive-scale space projects like Star Wars' Death Star a serious long-term goal for humanity. I wasn't joking.

OK, I was kind of joking — I chose the Death Star as my example because it was the biggest and most absurd-sounding space technology project that I thought readers would generally be aware of. But I could just as easily have chosen a Dyson sphere, or a ringworld, or a topopolis, or a faster-than-light spacecraft. Whether the project resulted in an energy source in space or a planet-destroying battle station didn't really matter for the purposes of my argument: The idea was that by reaching for the stars we could employ hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people during economic slumps and we'd accumulate a huge number of helpful technologies for use on Earth.

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John Aziz is the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate editor at Pieria.co.uk. Previously his work has appeared on Business Insider, Zero Hedge, and Noahpinion.