“The zipline played a key role in the democratization of space”
Victor Habbick Visions/Science Photo Library/Alamy
Although the price of spaceflight fell dramatically in the 2030s, the environmental and financial costs of using chemical rockets to escape Earth’s gravity delayed human expansion to the Moon and beyond. There was also widespread anger that space exploration was becoming the preserve of the ultra-rich, leading to a desire to democratize access to space.
A dream, for centuries, was to build one space elevator to take them from Earth to space without using rockets. But how…
