Bailong Elevator-World’s Tallest Outdoor Lift

The Bailong Elevator is the world’s tallest outdoor elevator. Located in Hunan province in China,  it takes tourists to the peak of a cliff in the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park,, at 1.070 foot (326m). It is a double-deck elevator and takes up to 50 people at a time. There are three such lifts. On the way to the top you can admire the nature since the walls of the elevator are made of glass. Scary! It’s construction began in 1999 and it opened to the public in 2002. The cost is estimated at $ 18 million. 
The Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, is protected by UNESCO so the construction of the Bailong Elevator have been a subject of debate.

The Bailong Elevator, also known as the Hundred Dragons Elevator, holds the Guinness World Records for the tallest outdoor lift in the world since 2015 but it seems that it will not be in the Guinness book for long time.  The Canadian space firm has patented a 20 km tall (12.4 miles) space elevator, named the ThothX Tower.

Thoth’s Elevator will be twenty times higher than the world’s current tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

ThothX Tower is expected to reduce the cost of transporting equipment and personnel to space stations. The elevator’s roof will have a runway from which spacecraft could be launched.

via: boro