I missed a major point here. As in the case of the Earth, where a space elevator would be exposed to almost every satellite orbiting below and somewhat above the GEO level, a space elevator on Mars would be exposed to Phobos, that orbits below GEO, and probably to Deimos that orbits so close above GEO that the counterbalance for the elevator would probably be in it's path. Since GEO is not possible on most face locked moons, to include our own, that would not be an issue for the Moon. The elevator for the Moon would be at the Earth-Moon L1 point, long, but not exposed to many orbiting objects, and none that could not be cleaned up. Also, it is under a much lighter load. See, the problem with space elevators is that they pretty much require the cleaning up of all orbital objects below GEO or above GEO and within the range of the counterbalance piece. This is a problem, to put it mildly. Other than satellites in GEO, almost all other satellites cross the equator on a regular basis and the crossing points move cyclically with a certain amount of drift or non-repeatability. So, nothing that is fixed in that orbital environment is going to do well, as every thing from LEO to GEO and possibly above is in danger of striking the elevator. When we decide to have an elevator, we basically decide to give up all items orbiting in anything but very carefully controlled temporary orbits at any altitude below the counterbalance other than GEO. The problem with things at those altitudes is that they have very little protection from the Earth's magnetic field, raising drastically the amount of shielding necessary to maintain human beings and even the electronics that we so often put there.

Before you can safely put up your elevator, you need to put up a large LASER satellite above the counterbalance point to push all the trash and satellites below it out of orbit. That would mean either burning up the ISS or pushing it up to GEO. Of course, it will require a huge amount of shielding to make it useful at that position. With an elevator, that shielding can be provided.

All of that makes the swinging tethers in LEO much, much more attractive, and the elevator an idea for the very, very far future if at all. Such a tether for the Moon could be at astonishingly low altitudes, making it simple enough to be doable almost right now and most surely in the near future. Again, the advantage of the tethers is that they can place and lift cargo at almost any point on the surface.

Won't the earth end have to have slip room also for load balancing?

I far as I can see, the only way to keep equilibrium during freight loading is to allow the entire structure to move up & down a bit, all in relation to load mass* acceleration / mass of the structure.
Thus any and all earth-side connections must be flexable OR sliding like a brushed electric motor.

BTW, it's been pointed out that Killmanjaro is REALLY tall & on the equator. Chances are a structure to "anchor" this to will have to be built in the middle of the pacific, for one reason, it will be the greatest attractant to terrorists ever seen. There will have to be military weapons defending the thing 24/7/365 from rouge aircraft or ships.

Easy, you build a pyramidal structure 10 miles high to anchor the Earth end. And that kind of structure is possible with present day technology, there's just no need for one . . yet.

i want to slap the pearson who came up with this "space elivator" hype.
it is the stupedest idea i have heard.
the more cable or ribon you add, (if the top wants to stay in geo syncrosis orbit) the higher the spacecraft has to go to counteract the center of balance change creating an endless loop also even strong metals like steel or even titanium would not hold thier own weight at this length. if anyone knows the scam artist who proposed the space elivator, slap them for me"

Hi smart 'pearson',

Actually, I believe it was a chap by the name of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky who first proposed the original concept for the space elevator. I'd slap him for you, but

a) he's been dead a long time, and
b) he's generally acknowledged as one of the conceptual founders of rocketry and spaceflight, so that makes him just a little more visionary and intelligent than yourself, I would think.

I would also think that before publicly writing a piece both directly and indirectly calling other people stupid, you would bother to spell-check your work that contains at least 8 spelling mistakes in a post consisting of not many more than 100 words.

With that out of the way, I can't envisage such a project going ahead for anything less than many trillions of dollars even in the medium term, so although it is nice to speculate at the moment, I tend to think that more efficient launch technologies will be a far more preferable solution in any time frame bar the distant future…

now only to fix the 'slight' problem of manufacturing thousands of miles of carbon nanotubes(which would most likely have to be made in space to affront rocketing it up there, which neither would be cheap, as in the tens of billions of dollars) and having an advanced enough computer system and stationary point in space to synch. the entire thing with earths orbit

Diamond fiber.
Production of this or a related material is nessesary to reach goe-sync orbit AND to withstand the rigors of our atmosphere.

Also a certain amount of aerodymanic design & possibly an ACTIVE aero componant (no idea yet what that would be) to compensate for heavy winds.

YOu ARE correct, ALL LEO sats would have to go, anything below geo-sync orbit would have to go. This makes the required length of the cable about 25,000 miles.

John Mandenhall:
YOu also are correct, as far as you went.
Since there is ample solar wind up in the geo-sync orbits, the "weighted end" that would have to slip along the top length of the cable would get hoisted into a slightly higher orbit by solar sail, then allow itself to be dragged back down into its normal orbit by upcoming frieght. It's not simple or cheap at first but its doable. The upcoming freight platform would take electrical energy directly from the cable & climb it, this would drag the cable down. The energy to put it back in correct orbit HAS to be fed in first for stability.

Engineers since the 1960s have said that the technology to supply the entire planet with enough electricity from space based solar power plants is already here, just no technology to get the power to the ground, until now.

Thats right people, this could be the next saudi Arabia energy wise, a possible complete replacement for most existing sources of energy and completely "green".

WE could even make it "dump" ozone by million ton at exactly the correct altitude to replenish the ozone layer.

BTW, latest solar technology is up to 26% conversion eficiency.

I can see this on spinning orbital platforms or on asteroids but not on Earth or any other object with a seriously populated orbit.

Were it that simple. Read a little more on space elevators. The laws of physics are inexorable. The same amount of energy is required to move a kilogram up the space elevator as is required to put the kilogram into orbit, neglecting the fuel required to raise the fuel in the rocket. While better than the rocket, it isn't free. In addition, the technology needed at the anchors and at the synchronous end will make the space shuttle look like a kindergarden toy. Nevertheless, the space elevator(s) look like the way to go. Witness NASA's stunning lack of success in getting back to the Moon.

With rocket launches the best one can hope for is maybe $10,000 / kg in launch costs. With an elevator no fuel is required, so you can boost an unlimited amount of stuff into orbit and all it costs you is the price of maintaining the elevator and paying the staff.