Hey, I like space elevators, but if James Miller thinks that this idea will win the 2006 election for Republicans, he’s…well…politically naive.

I can just imagine the Democrat commercials, were they to attempt such a thing. All they’d have to do is show the end of the Simpsons monorail episode, with the giant magnifying glass, the skyscraper made of popsickle sticks, and all of the people riding the escalator to nowhere and falling off the top.

“Millions go without health insurance, our soldiers are dying in Iraq, and the Republicans want to build an elevator to nowhere.”

Sadly, in many ways (as I’ve noted previously), the human spaceflight program has in fact been building a metaphorical elevator to nowhere.