About the book: 1980 / A lot has been done in recent years. The mountains have been moved, at least the asteroids. The Earth, just above the synchronous orbit, has a second natural satellite. Its diameter, initially about a kilometer, quickly decreased as carbon was produced. Everything else - the iron core and production waste - subsequently forms a counterweight that holds the tower in a vertical position. Like a stone in a sling forty thousand kilometers long... Read about man’s first steps into space in Arthur C. Clarke’s science fiction novel “The Fountains of Paradise”».