>>11755590>>11755587Colossal carbon tubes have the required macroscale specific strength necessary to make a space elevator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_carbon_tube>>11755609carbon nanotubes aren't strong enough at the macroscale to make a space elevator. But colossal carbon tubes are. However we can't make them much longer than a centimeter.
>>11755576because there isn't a large need for very cheap space access. Satellite internet is a good reason for cheapish space access, but it doesn't require very cheap launch and it might not pan out. The iridium constellation which was to provide satellite based phone, fax, and paging service over the whole world was supposed to be quite profitable. It meant that iridium could monopolize all the phone, fax, and paging over the whole world. It was a huge flop because the time it became active cellphones were much better than the brick sized satellite phones. A bunch of cheap space launch companies died when iridium died too. The same could happen again. And really for a satellite internet constellation you don't need launch to be so cheap that it justifies the cost of building a space elevator. Other issues are that we don't have materials strong enough to build a space elevator. Because near term you have to power the climber with a laser, the efficiency is less than that of a rocket.
>>11755580space elevators have to go past geostationary orbit or they don't work at all
>>11755640Orbital rings require A HUGE AMOUNT OF MATERIAL. So this space elevator concept requires roughly 200,000 kg of material to LEO for an initial space elevator that can bootstrap itself:
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/472Edwards.pdfThat includes cable mass, counterweight mass, propellant to bring it all to GEO and more. According to the following paper, a basic orbital ring needs 1.8*10^8 kg of material:
https://www.orionsarm.com/fm_store/OrbitalRings-II.pdfAnd making that one requires space factories
