The Fountains of Paradise

In this brief but stimulating paper, Dr. Polyakov, of the Astrakhan Teaching Institute, describes in precise engineering details Morgan's final vision of a continuous ring around the world. He sees this as a natural extension of the space elevator, whose construction and operation he also discusses in a manner virtually identical with my own treatment.

I salute tovarich Polyakov, and am beginning to wonder if – yet again, I have been too conservative. Perhaps the Orbital Tower may be an achievement of the twenty-first century, not the twenty-second.

Our own grandchildren may demonstrate that – sometimes – Gigantic is Beautiful.

Colombo

18 September 1978