[ackydoodles]

Many problems must be solved before they can exist.

(1) Only suitable material for the cable is, at the moment, unobtanium. (2) Cable must be moved continuously to dodge debris and satellites whose orbits cross the equator (all of them except those in geosynchronous orbit). (3) The cable, elevator module and any cargo or people must pass through the Van Allen belts, which will degrade them. People don't respond well to degradation by radiation.

Other than that, we're good to go.

[dllthomas]

Wouldn't another approach to (2) be eliminating debris and having satellites steer around it? We don't move buildings to dodge cars.

This isn't to say that's easy, just that there's more than one currently intractable way we might eventually be able to skin that particular cat.

Edited to add:

With respect to (3), there's apparently this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt#Propos...

I don't know near enough about it to say whether it's any sort of a good idea, but it doesn't seem hard relative to building a space elevator.

[Florin_Andrei]

The problems created by radiation in the Van Allen belts are vastly overstated. The funny part is, this is due in part to fake Moon landing conspiracy theorists, who use the radiation as a "supporting argument".

[dllthomas]

My understanding is that satellites that plan on spending significant time in the Van Allen belts need to take countermeasures. Is that not the case, or is it only relevant to things like sensitive electronics?