Orbital Elevator

From: hetrevillion hetrevillion@...

>Hi Matt,
>Check out the space elevator group here on Yahoo.com... many threads of
>info on fixed and rotational tethers as well as other off-topic
>threads of thought.

Thanks. Looks like there is some reading to do ...

Since you are more familiar with the topic, how much mass might it take to get a useful orbital elevator? (Not the rotavator -- docking seems tricky.)

Just wondering how much functionality (weight lifting / orbital height capability) would be required before it might be financially attractive. At a superficial level, it seems that a basic system might not require hundreds of tons of hardware to do some initial satellite boosting working.

The first big barrier to the High Frontier is cost to orbit. There are other approaches to reduce launch, but I was curious if the reason not much was written about orbiting elevators was because they have a fundamental problem (which other elevator concepts didn't have).