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Old Jun 20th, 2009, 06:49 AM       
The elevator would be in a geostationary orbit - no movement with respect to the earth's rotation. The other points you make are valid, which is why redundency needs to be designed into the construction.

The elevator at the bottom would be in effect a smallish cable in appearance, while at the top (the part in orbit) it would be roughly the size of a small building. Not only does it need to support the mass of whatever it's bringing up into orbit, but also the mass of the cable itself, which is monstrous.

Spider silk would probably work, if we could find a spider that BIG :arachnophobia
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