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Around the turn of the Millenia, The A&E Network ranked Johannes Gutenberg as #1 on their "People of the Millennium" countdown in 1999.

Good choice. Gutenberg was the son of a solid line of merchants and craftsmen, a middle class working stiff back in medieval Germany, who had an idea, and the practical skills to make it real.

He was not a fiery orator that caused millions to take up arms, nor a deep thinker that He wasn't a scientist, either. He didn't invent the wheel, or electricity, or horseless carriages, and would have been totally mystified by the concept of splitting the atom.

But his invention, the Gutenberg press, allowed ideas to dessiminate. Martin Luther would not have been able to post his bull on the cathedral door without Gutenberg. Thomas Payne would have had no broadsheets to distribute. Clerics would have kept their monopoly on the Bible -- and the Torah -- and the Koran.

Large dreams are fun, even inspiring, but if you want to achieve your dreams, you need concrete, technological steps. If you want to get from A to C, you'll need B.

For example, if you want to get from Earth to the stars, you might need the Lift Port Group -- a company in Washington State, which is working on this amazingly wacky yet somehow oddly practical idea to transport materials cheaply from earth to space. They've already got a client, Lightspeed Broadband, a wireless Internet access provider, which hopes to use some of LiftPort's earthly technology for web purposes.

The goal, though, is the space elevator. Some refer to it inaccurately as the elevator to the moon, or more colorfully as "the beanstalk."

Basically, here's what a space elevator is: It's a long metal ribbon, anchored at one end to some point on the earth, and ending in a space platform at some point between the earth's atmosphere and the moon. Once you get the ribbon up, you can run materials up and down it. Cheaply.

Once you get the materials into space, you can build anything you want, as big as you want, without having to worry about the earth's gravity. And you can transport things like ore back down, using the earth's gravity for the business end of the trip.

From the LPG homepage:

The LiftPort Group (LPG) is dedicated to building a mass transportation system to open up access to the inner solar system (LEO, GEO, the Moon, Mars, and asteroids). The Space Elevator will be at the heart of this revolutionary transportation service. By opening up broad-based access to Earth orbits and the inner solar system, LPG will help bring about the creation of entire new markets. Based in space commerce, these new markets can only become viable through safe, inexpensive, routine access to the inner solar system. In short, we at LiftPort Group believe that development of the space elevator is a crucial step in the future of Earth and space.

To put it crudely, if you get materials into space, then you can build amazing things without having to deal with the earth's gravity field. You can build ships that will go to the inner planets and the stars. You can build robots to mine the planets and asteroids. You can build structures that will house colonists to the inner planets ... and you can do it without having to use rockets without having to "slip the surly bonds of earth."

And, folks -- it's do-able. We have the technology available. Take a look at "Lift Port -- Opening Space Up To Everyone," over at Amazon.com, also available at the Lift Port website. Science fiction fans, as well as nuts-and-bolts scientists and engineers all over the world, will recognize the editors and contributors: Bill Fawcett (Co-editor), Michael Laine (Co-editor), Tom Nugent Jr. (Co-editor), Sir Arthur C. Clarke (Contributor), Kim Stanley Robinson (Contributor), John LoSecco (Contributor), Todd McCaffrey (Contributor), Timothy Cash (Contributor), Mike Resnick & Paul Crilley (Contributor), Rudolf Behrens (Contributor)

Science fiction fans, and engineers as well, will also understand that Jules Verne, HG Wells and Leonardo Da Vinci essentially predicted alot of scientific and technical advances of the 21st century.

The book is not just the stuff of dreams; it presents the nuts and bolts of how to make it work. Solid scientific and engineering articles are interspersed with the short stories -- articles that explain just how "the beanstalk" can be practically built, and solid responses to questions and concerns.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut -- but was told that I'd never be a pilot because back then, astronauts were Navy pilots first, and I'd never be a pilot because I had bad eyesight. Besides, as a girl, I'd have "other things" to worry about.

Later, in July, 1969, I camped with some friends on a mesa in New Mexico that overlooked a small site of Anasazi ruins. I remember one night in particular: I watched the seductive moon glowing against the night sky while a crackling voice over the radio talked about "a giant step for mankind ... " I remember thinking "Well, I'm earthbound, but maybe my kids can colonize Mars."

We never made it back to the moon. Back then, we had to fund a war in Vietnam, and then there were new social programs to pay for. And, of course, government bureaucracy began to grow like kudzu around NASA.

Our kids are now looking at a stark new war, sobering in its implications. Federal bureaucrats also remain the same, only more numerous, with even more new and innovative ways of entrenching themselves around formerly effective projects.

And yet -- there is still the dream and there are still people with their sleeves rolled up, folks who have an idea, and the skills to make it work. Who knows? Maybe my grandkids will work on the space platform at the end of a beanstalk.

Read the book, or click to the fun LiftPortStaffBlog, a combination of dreams, gossip, and practical news. It's a place where you can find out about events, like next month's NASA competition in New Mexico which will showcase space elevator technology. Or the October 28th meeting of the Space Settler's Society in Glasgow, which will be discussing getting into space without rockets.

Or, just click to the LiftPort website. Notice the countdown at the top of the page to April 12th, 2018.

And, dream a little.

Image of Gutenberg is from RenaissanceConnection. Artwork of the space elevator is from the LiftPortWebsite, with this note: Art: NOT OURS: another amazing Mattingly drawing of what the future could look like. thats the kind of world I want to build! (... me, too .. FB)