Might solar energy provide the power needed to send cars up a space elevator? Could you build one fat elevator and split it into two? Can as many as six cars travel up and down a space elevator?

Those are just some of the questions that attendees at the annual Space Elevator Conference on Friday in Seattle wondered about.

“These are ideas we want to hear and we want people to follow up on,” said Bryan Laubscher, one of the leading space elevator enthusiasts and principle at Odysseus Technologies, a company working on high-strength materials.

Similar to past years at the conference, Laubscher’s introductory talk spilled into a general brainstorming session where attendees discussed possible solutions to problems that dog the development of a space elevator.