Even though there are lots of areas that need further study, there are other areas of research into technology required for the space elevator under way.

For instance, the ribbon must be made out of carbon nanotubes, because that is the only known way to create a strong enough fiber. "We could use steel, but the mass of the elevator would exceed the mass of the universe," Laubscher said.

Vasilii Artyukhov, a researcher from Rice University, presented some of his study into how and under what conditions nanocarbon breaks, an important issue for the space elevator.

In addition, on Friday at the conference NASA will oversee a strong-tether competition that is part of its Centennial Challenges program. This will be the fifth strong-tether competition as part of the challenge and no one has come close yet to meeting the strength requirement set out in the challenge, said Larry Cooper, program executive of the Centennial Challenge for NASA.

If someone wins that challenge it would be a step in the right direction, but a tether strong enough to build a space elevator would have to be six times stronger than the goal of the challenge, he said.