Space elevators
For the basic idea of space elevators there is quite some literature on these out there.
I'm not going to repeat that here. So please consult external literature for that.
Link to wikipedia page further below.
Contents
Big questions
– How to evade space debris assuming not all of the debris can be deflected/neutralized?
– Is there a way to save passenges in case a cable actually rips?
Number and density of elevators
Why do concepts always depict just one single lone standing elevator cable?
There's a quite limited throughput capacity of a single one (wiki-TODO: check existing numbers).
And if technology evolves to a point where there can be built one with a reasonably sane effort,
then surely a second and eventually third and so forth one can be built too.
Also multiple cables may perhaps allow for cross linking startegies for mainenance, debris evasion, and safety by redundancy?
In how far has this been looked into?
Risk Assessment
Risk is degree of the damage times frequency of occurence.
A falling cable may be designed to burn up in the atmosphrere (severely limiting max damage)
but the fall might still be fatal for passengers travelling during the cable rupture.
Building materials
Nanotubes are always mentioned but
gemstone based APM gives lots of options beyond that.
Graphene stripes, lonsdaleite crystolecules, …
