Space Elevators Are Possible

The writing isn't too hot, either.

If we can make one, it seems pretty obvious from the studies I've seen that it will be the major enabling technology for getting into space in a large way. Unfortunately, I don't think we've hit the carbon nanotube lengths that we'd need (on the order of meters).

Here's a great book that came out of a NASA funded study that breaks the issues down well, including costs, necessary tech, and methods for dealing with potential issues like cable breakage: http://www.amazon.com/Space-Elevator-Earth-Space-Transportat...

Their conclusion was that it would be much more cost effective than most people think, and that it would enable an incredible reduction in cost to orbit due to not needing to use a pyramid of fuel to carry other fuel for later, or enormous one-time-use precision machinery, and instead using simple containers with electric motors and transmitted electricity.

No, you will spend more time in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt with a space elevator.

The main problem with the elevator, in my opinion, for many years already is not in the strength of the material. After all, nanotubes are known for many years, and their properties are sufficient for the tether, so in principle it can be done. No, the main problem is with satellites. In fact, asking many times - what to do with existing or future satellites - I never heard a workable answer, even in principle.

Just a reminder - every satellite crosses the equatorial plane twice for every rotation around the Earth. Majority of satellites are below the geostationary orbit. So, given enough time every satellite will hit the tether - and even if tether is near-zero width, the satellite isn't.

One of ideas was to dynamically move the tether - from the Earth, making propagating wave along the tether, which would avoid the satellites. This means we need the good means of watching the space and predicting satellites movements - even small satellites can bring trouble. But that's not enough, we might get a situation when we need to perform conflicting movements, considering the current state of the wave.

This problem is well known for decades. Attempts to launch satellites from the elevator - and the elevator makes it tantalizingly cheap, so we'll want to launch many - will exacerbate the problem. The whole world astronautics will have to adjust to accomodate the elevator - and nobody knows how it is going to look like.