What comes after Tokyo Sky tree; Space Elevator

With waiting for a grand opening of Tokyo Sky Tree on May 22, the ticket reservation to go up to observatory has started from March 22. For the reservation for a initial period from May 22 until July 10, it is going to be a drawing to buy actual tickets. During this period, no day ticket is available, so you need to reserve the tickets in advance.

Since the Tokyo Sky Tree is going to be one of the tallest structure in the world (634m, tallest as a broadcasting tower, second tallest after Burj Khalifa (828m) in Dubai.), the tower can be seen from various points in Tokyo.

Since we don't see visible and easy to understand No.1 in Japan for a long time, this news sounds  very exciting for many Japanese people.

The towns around this tower already have gotten many sightseers from various area in Japan.  Because of this high profile monument, the nearest rail station recently changed its name from long-historically name, narihira bashi to Tokyo Sky Tree station.

It took three and half years to complete the construction. The construction was made by one of the largest general contractors in Japan, Obyashi Corp.

Now, Obayashi Corp announced this February its vision to develop Space Elevator by 2050.  This idea is to drape the two cables, made of  carbon nanotube, from space satellite and fix them to a land station on the earth.

Once this space elevator is constructed, it will help minimize the cost to launch space ship and materialize  to carry numerous number of people and materials to space, and of course, from space to the earth.

Still, the challenge is to find such carbon nanotube that is long and light enough, (in addition cheap enough) to build out such long cables. But after the announcement of its vision, Obayashi spokesman said that they've got many offers from various technology companies and academics to help this incredibly hard project move forward.

Obayashi is well known for its challenge spirit to tackle with technically hard project, I hope this project also comes true someday near future.