[Zavien Doombringer]

the angular momentum wouldn't be making this a vertical trip and eventually, the rotation would cause the whole thing to wrap around the earth... Again, theory and fantasy, not practical or possible. Ever seen a spinning galaxy, think of the arms.... this would be the effect.

[-YYZ-]

Guys, check out this link:

http://www.zadar.net/space-elevator/

and I think all these questions will be answered, assuming you can understand it all. I admit some of it flew over my head, although with some study I could probably understand it all. All the objections you raise to the theoretical possibility of a space elevator have been considered. Cracking the whip or wrapping the whole thing around the earth is not a concern. Many, many practical difficulties do exist, however.

[cdgent]

Wow - there is a lot of misconceptions floating around here. Verifying the basic feasibility of a space elevator was one of my homework assignments when I got my degree in astronautical engineering, so let me see if I can work on a few of the bigger points-

1. The total system will be in geosynchronous orbit, with the center of mass at the geosync point. Imagine an asteroid in orbit at geosync, stable at one point over the equator. Now reel cables out both up and down, at the same rate, until one touches the ground. The entire system is both in orbit around the earth and stable over one point- because its a geosynchronous orbit.

2. Just because the elevator crosses all the intermediate altitudes, does not mean it needs to achieve orbital velocities at those altitudes. The system is in orbit at its center of gravity - that's all that matters. There are plenty of large satellites in orbit right now which would be tumbling if this were not the case. In fact, the tendency of a tall/long spacecraft to self align with the vertical is called gravity gradiant stabilization, and is used to help keep some satellites stable.

3. All the talk about the payload mass throwing the system off or atmospheric effects bending the cable are ignoring the sheer size/mass of the system. Think about a 50cm cable, 62000km long. Assuming the cable is only 1/2 the density of steel, this is 6.2 million tonnes. A 100ton payload is just not going to have that big effect - and the control system would actually control the timing and speeds of the payloads, both up and down, to control the orbital perturbations of the moon, etc.

Hope this clears some stuff up.