The elevator weighs about the same amount as a super crude tanker ship and is expected to cost about $5 billion to build. Thoth Technology said that once built, it will reduce the cost of reaching low Earth orbit by 30 percent compared to conventional rockets.
Traditional rocket launches can cost upwards of $250 million, while cheaper commercial offerings like those offered by SpaceX — the commercial aerospace company founded by Elon Musk— lists the launch price of its Falcon 9 rocket at $61.2 million and it's Falcon Heavy model at $90 million.
The inventor of the "space elevator" is Brendan Quine, an engineering professor at York University in Toronto and co-founder of Thoth Technology. He said the team behind the elevator worked on the concept for eight years before securing the U.S. patent in July.
"Other inflated tower designs have been explored previously, but they typically use buttress designs or support cables that we believe [are] impractical," Quine told CNBC.
Graham Warwick, a managing editor at Aviation Week, said that the aerospace industry had been looking for a cheaper way to launch goods and people for decades.
"Single-stage-to-orbit from the ground has so far proved impossible and a true space elevator (stretching all the way into space) would be hideously expensive to construct if we knew how, so this is another way to do it," Warwick told CNBC.
"Once built — if built, and if it works — this would seem to offer easier, more routine access to space. For spacecraft and for people."