Reaching for the stars - a non-rocket approach

As much as I think humanity needs to focus on fixing the problems happening on our own planet, I have a fascination with reaching for the stars. There is so much more to be discovered out there in the universe that we really owe it to ourselves as a civilization to get out there and see it.

One dream of mine (and a great many others before me) is to have some method of getting into space that does not involve firing rockets to get away from Earth's gravity.

When rockets fail, they fail disastrously. When rockets succeed, they punch holes in the ozone layer.

(Now, artificially produced ozone is also created at ground level by our combustion engines, so I'm wondering if there is some way we can collect that and use it to fill up the holes we have created, but that's for another post entirely.)

If we want to reach for the stars, I'd like to be able to take an elevator. Most speculative designs to this point say that in order to have a geostationary orbiting tether, the length of the cable that would pull the elevator car up and down would need to be 36,000 km. That's a heck of a long cable – and one that would be immensely expensive to build.

However, the Karman line (the unofficial boundary with space) is at a much lower altitude of 100 km. I think we ought to come up with some design of elevator/tower that can bring people and cargo up to this height. Most of Earth's atmosphere is not up that high, which would drastically reduce the energy needed to launch things further.

Here's my first attempt. It's rather massive in scale, but I think it would do the job nicely while we wait for carbon nanotubes to be produced in sufficient capacity to make a 36,000-kilometre tether.

It's a giant, eight-sided structure – far more grand in scale than anything humanity has ever built (except for China's Great Wall, which is longer). The diameter is the same as the height (100 km), and the lattice provides for structural stability. In the centre of the structure is the tunnel where cargo and passengers would be lifted into launch position at 100 km up. From the top, without most of the atmosphere getting in the way, getting into orbit would be made much easier.

I have no idea how much this would cost, but I think it would serve as more than just a space launch platform, given its size. Undoubtedly many of my tower cities could be built around the vicinity of the structure, so that all would have access to its benefits.

Let me know what you all think!