With an oscillating double ribbon each side can be strengthened on alternative climbs.  So it takes two climbs to enhance the ribbon.

Since the climber is clamped to the ascending side it is the descending side that will be thickened.  There is a complication in that the climber changes sides every time the ribbon stops so each half of the ribbon consists of hills and valleys.  The next climb has to fill in the valleys.  This can be controlled by simply waiting until the required side is descending.

A New Scientist article about Boron nanotubes.

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13143-boron-nanotubes-could-outperform-carbon.html

Spinning the ribbon pair may keep the two moving parts apart.  Unfortunately it is also likely to twist the pair together, particularly when starting and stopping.

By Easter 2008 it should be possible to launch payloads weighing nearly half a tonne for about $10 million on a Falcon 1 rocket.  This should permit a constellation of several small microwave satellites.  The cost of designing and building the satellites and ground stations is a large separate cost.

We would love to make the ribbon a simple loop, this would solve a lot of problems, unfortunately the ribbon would break.

As for boosters the fuel for them would cause a very large increase in the climbers weight.  The rockets used by NASA are practically all fuel tank.  The large rockets are needed to move a capsule the size of a small truck 100 miles, on the flat road vehicles use a much smaller fuel tank.  Although a lot of the fuel is used to accelerate the capsule to 27,000 km/h.

The strength of materials is called the tensile strength and is measured in pascals.  Steel has a tensile strength of 2,000,000,000 Pa (or 2000 MPa) and carbon nanotubes 62,000,000,000 (or 62000 MPa).  The space elevator cable hangs down so a measure called the breaking length is important.  This is the length of material (in km) that can support its own weight.  The breaking length of steel is 25.93 km and the breaking length of carbon nanotubes is 4,716 km.  Pity the space elevator will be 100,000 km high.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_strength

Using a doubled back cable that rocks up and down to lift the cabin instead of an on board motor has been proposed, avoiding the heat problems, but this is just a dream until a super strength material has been invented.

The angular conveyor belt used to raise the payload into space can be a separate belt from the one used to accelerate the payload to orbital velocity.  This means that the part in the atmosphere can move at a much lower speed.

Boron nanotubes are nearly as strong as carbon nanotubes.

Given water and sun light the sky station can generate its own hydrogen by electrolysis.

We have trouble building anything taller than Mount Everest.  Nano tubes do not help because they compress, although diamond may work.  We have not seen a magnetically supported tower more than a few feet high.

Given a mountain that was a 100 miles tall we could easily run a 3 g track in a tunnel up the side.

Very little.  It is not accidental that our machines do not run off static electricity.

Solar cells produce an electrical current rather than static electricity so two wires are needed.

When given a choice of paths electricity splits between the two paths according to their resistance.  The climber's motor will probably have a much higher resistance than the cable so almost no static electricity would go through it.

That depends on the weight of the spacecraft.  If it is more than 20 tons the SE can only lift it in parts.

Some estimates of Mars transfer vehicles come out at 200 to 400 tons.

The current design of the Orion, like the Apollo Command Module, throws away the service module just before reentry.

A receiver of similar size would be needed for the microwaves from a solar power satellite.  It would also need operators and repairmen.

Can I interest you in a Lunar Space Elevator?
It can be docked with at EML2 or EML1.

This is similar to parking a car, you approach the ribbon at 5 miles per hour.
Note: Crashes depend on relative speed not absolute speed.

For practical purposes there are only two places the Space Elevator can be docked with - on the ground and at GEO.  The spacecraft has to fly back to GEO.  This is one of the reasons it has to refuel.

Method. The spacecraft returns from the Moon or Mars and goes into a circular orbit at GEO or GEO height +/- 1000 km.  It then inches around the orbit until it reaches the Space Elevator.  It applies a delta_v of less than 0.003 km/s (3 m/s = 10.8 km/h = 6.7 mph) to bring the space craft to a halt and the correct height.  Dock with the waiting ribbon, space station or climber.

Something similar can be done with spaceships in LEO using the reverse of the GEO Dive, see the table on my website.
http://uk.geocities.com/am.swallow@btopenworld.com/HTML/Dive_Height.html

The reverse of the High Dive may work but I am have not calculated the forces on the spacecraft at the apogee (top) of the elliptical orbit nor the size of the docking window(s).

So build spacecraft in a dry dock near GEO.
Tow it to the SE.
Fuel the spacecraft and put the people & cargo on board.
Launch by sliding up the ribbon.  A smaller climber will be needed at the start of the slide.
The ribbon has low rather than zero friction, so a method of cooling the ribbon and slider may be needed.
Release at the correct time and the correct height.
Fly to the Moon.

Fly back to ribbon and unload the people & return cargo at GEO.
Send the people down to Earth.
Inspect the spacecraft and scrap if warn out.
Repair, refuel and put more people and cargo on board.
Launch again.
Fly to destination
Return.

Repeat.