beanstalk n.

‘And take a look at the old reports on the dynamics of the bridge. You’ll see that it’s usually called a skyhook, although to me it always seems to be more like a Beanstalk.’ He laughed. ‘Up from the surface of the Earth, to a new land at the top of it—surely that’s a Beanstalk, if ever I heard of one. Pity your name isn’t Jack.’

I have never liked riding the Beanstalk. My distaste was full-blown even before the disaster to the Quito Skyhook. A cable that goes up into the sky with nothing to hold it up smells too much of magic.

Of all these proposed skyhooks, the Beanstalk is the most difficult to build. It must stand the greatest stresses. But the Beanstalk can lift cargo from ground to orbit, and fling them out to the stars, for the cost of the electricity, a few dollars a pound. But that cost is deceptive. The Beanstalk is also the most dangerous of the skyhooks. For if the cable ever snapped—

Forward Orbital Platform’s larger and brighter than Clarke—newer, and the interior is designed in bright cheerful colors, mostly cobalts and sunshine yellows that remind me of a children’s hospital. The air isn’t as good as the Montreal’s, but it’s warm and doesn’t smell canned, which is more than I can say for the shuttle. I especially like the way the overhead clearances are vaulted and painted different shades of blue to give the illusion of texture and depth. It’s almost like not being in a tin can eighteen hours by beanstalk above the surface of the Earth.

We knew that the Centaurans, or some other rapacious meat creatures, would return, but we had the vegetable tradition of patience, and we knew that we would persist until at some distant moment we would succeed. And then one of our Centauran sisters produced the answer—the ability to extract metal from the soil and to shape it, molecule by molecule, into support beams and rocket liners. Another, remembering a Centauran model, developed the ability to process internal carbon into a beanstalk extending, atom by atom, into the sky.