Rallem
Since the eighties, there's been some serious scientific evaluation of such ideas, but a more economically realistic prospect is the space elevator. Until recently, even that appeared to be more fantasy than science, but the advent of the carbon nanotube has changed things. The main hitch may be the large scale production and assembly of the nanotubes.
"3.3.1 Tall Towers
Today, the world's tallest self-supporting building is the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was built from 1973-1975, is 553 m in height, and has the world's highest observation deck at 447 m. The tower structure is concrete up to the 447-m observation deck level. Above the observation deck is a steel structure supporting radio, television, and communication antennas. The total weight of the tower is 300,000 tons. The height of existing towers and buildings today are not limited by construction technology or by materials strength. Conventional materials and methods make it possible even today to construct towers many kilometers in height. When considering how high a tower can be built, it is important to remember that it can be built out of anything if the base is large enough. Theoretically, you could build a tower to GEO out of bubble gum, but the base would probably cover half the sphere of the Earth. The height of existing towers and buildings today are not limited by building technology or by materials strength; it is simply that there has not been a good economic reason to build towers any taller than have been built so far."
http://www.affordablespaceflight.com/spaceelevator.htmlCarbon nanotube (approximately 1/50,000th of the width of a human hair)
