The Silk Road was an important trading road.
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Silk Road Routes
Beginning in about 100 BC, a web of overland trade routes developed to carry goods between Asia and Europe. The earliest, most direct, and most heavily used route came to be known as the Silk Road, for the precious Chinese cloth that was most abundantly traded on it. The routes waxed and waned through the centuries with changing political and environmental conditions. After the discovery of a sea route from Europe to Asia in the late 15th century, the land routes were gradually abandoned in favor of ocean-borne trade. (Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2004.)
It becomes obvious to me that no matter where we go in the future their will be many silk roads. There will be the routes that take merchandise to the space elevators of the future and then on to the space colonies, Moon, Mars and outer planets.
But the important thing to remember is a lot of the construction and maintenance of these routes were done by the local governments. And, if not those institutions then, regular people who charged tolls to keep up the roads. So it is not to unrealistic to imagine a road into space charging a modest fee to get into orbit. From their space vehicles would charge a modest fee to get your merchandise to the other space colonies or heavenly bodies in the solar system.
But I don't foresee this happening in my life time. Things are going business as usual now with space flight. The U.S. is pursuing new rockets and spacecraft to get into space and private space companies are doing the same.
No one wants to build a space elevator because it costs way too much and it may be beyond our current building possibilities. I think the only way one could be constructed is if it was in the world's best interest to build one. You'd have to use a lot of robotic power to construct it and make sure the thing is safe before it could be used.
Does the technology exist now to build one? No, but I am sure it could if money was invested in it heavily like the $25.4 billion total spent in NASA's past when going to the moon. And as we know if you take inflation into affect that number is a lot bigger and NASA was able to do more with that money then you could today. All you would need is the UN to request governments to donate money towards a space elevator. If the stipulation was free access to all and maybe a negligent toll for moving goods you would see a space elevator program start taking affect.
The problem is that right now no one sees the need for one. The US, Russia, China, Europe, and Japan, to name a few, all have space programs. It is easier for them to get in to space the way they do it now then to commit to a project that maybe slightly out of bounds for the world. Not out of funding limits but out of constructing limits.
The future is bright and there will eventually be space elevators and space colonies but once was assumed would happen in a 10 to 20 years after Apollo may take decades and centuries to happen if at all. The average person is happy to live on Earth and does not see the need to take life off of it into space or onto the Moon or Mars. But it only takes those first few to tell their stories of life on another planet and more settlers will head the call.
