StarTram: The New Race to Space

StarTram, a new way to launch people and payloads into space at much lower cost than now possible, will soon radically change the world. How will the world change? Will it be a bright future or a dark future for humanity? We don€t know€"nobody knows. The outcome will depend on our leaders and how we use this new technology. If the nations of the world cooperate, our future will be very bright: clean, low cost power beamed from space satellites to Earth, protection against global warming and threats from asteroids and comets, the mining of near-earth asteroids, real exploration of the Solar System and interstellar space, colonies on the Moon and Mars, space tourism, the discovery of extraterrestrial life forms, mining Helium-3 from the atmosphere of Uranus for return to Earth to fuel fusion reactors, and many other tremendous benefits.