What happened to ion drives, and elevators on super strong rope to carry things up to the space stattion?
The probe deep space one was an ion drive spacecraft, the thruster was named NSTAR. The Japanese space agencies Hayabusa had a xenon ion engine. For the second part did you mean 'Beanstalks'? If you never heard of it before here's a link
space elevatorThe development of it depends on developing material strong enough for the task
quote:
A space elevator can be made relatively economically feasible if a cable with a density similar to graphite and a tensile strength of ~65-120 GPa can be produced in bulk at a reasonable price
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