Although orbital towers appear futuristic, it is perhaps worth noting that towers which reached the sky abound in human myth and legend.

In the West, the most famous of these is the Tower of Babel, recorded in Genesis:

'Come,' they said, 'let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves, or we shall be dispersed all over the earth.' Then the Lord came down to see the city and tower that which mortal men had built, and he said, 'Here they are, one people with a single language, and now they have started to do this; henceforward nothing they have a mind to do will be beyond their reach..' (NEB Genesis 11)

The Book of Genesis also offers Jacob's Ladder:

..(Jacob) came to a certain place and stopped there for the night because the sun had set; and, taking one of the stones there, made it a pillow for his head and lay down to sleep. He dreamt that he saw a ladder, which rested on the ground with its top reaching to heaven, and angels of God were going up and down on it.. (NEB Genesis 28:11)

The Egyptian Pyramid Texts refer to a ladder by which the dead pharaoh ascended into the sky:

The gods who are in the sky are brought to you, the gods who are on earth assemble for you, they place their hands under you, they make a ladder for you that you may ascend on it into the sky, the doors of the sky are thrown open to you, the doors of the starry firmament are thrown open to you. (Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Utterance 572)

This ladder appears to have extended down from heaven to earth as a rope-ladder:

Atum has done what what he said he would do for this king; he ties the rope ladder for him. (Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Utterance 688)

Elsewhere, the tower is replaced by a tree that reaches to heaven. In Norse mythology there is Yggdrasil, the World Ash Tree, which reaches heaven. In Mayan myth, the universe was divided into 3 zones - heaven, earth, underworld - In the centre of the world stood the Tree of Life which connected the heavens with the underworld. The souls of the dead ascended through the roots of the tree and climbed to reach the heavens above.

A few other related stories and images may be included. There is the folk-tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, which Jack climbs to enter a land inhabited by a man-eating giant. The Tarot, of uncertain antiquity, has Card 16, The Lightning-Struck Tower, signifying ambition and catastrophe. Also the fabled Indian rope trick: a rope is thrown upwards, and an armed man climbs up it, and engages in an unseen battle, during which parts of limbs drop to ground.