Question
What would it take to build a ladder in to outer space?
Answer
No, not with materials available today. And likely not with any conceivable material. The main reason is drag.
The reason I say this is a much simpler concept that HAS been considered/tried, the idea of tethered ultra-low-orbit spacecraft, doesn't really work. There the idea is to hang a light, low-flying (upper atmosphere) satellite off a normal LEO satellite.
Turns out the drag on even an extremely thin tether made with the strongest available material is enough to bring the higher satellite down, instead of having it keep the lower one up (a former professor of mine in grad school did the drag calculations and came to this conclusion, which I agree with, though there are others who make different assumptions about drag and come to other conclusions).
That said, tethers may still prove workable in some cases.
A ladder to space would be the logical extreme of a tether, with the lower end being an earth anchor (think rope ladder hanging from a satellite, not rigid ladder being supported on earth... the latter is even less practical).
A slightly simpler concept, because it would need less material than a ladder, is a space elevator, and people have proposed fancy schemes involve ultra-thin wire or tape shaped tethers on which an elevator car can ride.
Again, while nobody has tried this, I think drag will kill any feasible anchoring scheme and pull down anything holding up the other end.
The reason I say this is a much simpler concept that HAS been considered/tried, the idea of tethered ultra-low-orbit spacecraft, doesn't really work. There the idea is to hang a light, low-flying (upper atmosphere) satellite off a normal LEO satellite.
Turns out the drag on even an extremely thin tether made with the strongest available material is enough to bring the higher satellite down, instead of having it keep the lower one up (a former professor of mine in grad school did the drag calculations and came to this conclusion, which I agree with, though there are others who make different assumptions about drag and come to other conclusions).
That said, tethers may still prove workable in some cases.
A ladder to space would be the logical extreme of a tether, with the lower end being an earth anchor (think rope ladder hanging from a satellite, not rigid ladder being supported on earth... the latter is even less practical).
A slightly simpler concept, because it would need less material than a ladder, is a space elevator, and people have proposed fancy schemes involve ultra-thin wire or tape shaped tethers on which an elevator car can ride.
Again, while nobody has tried this, I think drag will kill any feasible anchoring scheme and pull down anything holding up the other end.