My Lofty Sky High Plans

By Jim Hagarty
2015

I hate it when I have a good idea and somebody else gets to the patent office with it first.

A Canadian company has just been granted a U.S. patent for a 20-kilometre-high space elevator. Thoth Technology of Pembroke, Ontario., says the freestanding structure would allow astronauts to launch from a platform high above the Earth. The elevator will be pneumatically pressurized and guided over its base to allow such a tall and slender structure to stand freely.

The space elevator could also be used for wind-energy generation, communications and tourism.

Well, that all sounds pretty fancy but I wanted to build it because I love heights and to be in an elevator that stretches from Stratford to Mitchell would be a blast.

Oh, well. On to my other plan which is to built a giant escalator up one side of the Rocky Mountains and another down the other side.

Rats. I just gave away another amazing idea.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.