If objects are going to be manufactured in orbit or on asteroids or the moon and then returned to Earth, remember, you are going to have to have a way of slowing down to get to the surface. We currenty use heat ablation to slow reentering spacecraft from orbital or translunar velocities.

How are people envisioning doing this with the SE?

If you are going to hitch a ride down the elevator, you are still going to have to slow way down and then grab on. How do you do this?

But the outer tip of an SE won't be going fast enough to do that. The outer tip is at orbital velocity at GEO or else the whole thing won't work.

Also, there is the option of atmospheric reentry. I think it is the simplest and safest, because it does not involve precision rendezvous. It is also well understood and has a large track record. Last not least, it is a lot faster.

Andreas

I'm going to read more and post less.

thanks for your patience.

I agree, more than one go at catching the SE at GEO, but perhaps that is true even much farther out toward the counter weight, if there are bolos at enough locations that you can catch a bolo tip before the next try. Bolo tips are not easy to catch either.
A high speed collision at GEO can destroy the SE and space craft, but a collision near a puny counter weight at an altitude of 200,000 kilometers may allow repair of the SE. The SE tip travels about 1.3 million kilometers per day = 54,000 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 200,000 kilometers. 200,000 kilometers is possible for a tapered tether SE. The thin tip of the SE can be moved some to assist the attachment, but the thicker tether at GEO is more difficult to maneuver.   Neil

Transients traveling on the SE make the parking space jump around a bit, perhaps considerably, but I agree the jumping due to transients is much worse out near a puny counterweight. A bolo will have rare transients, if it is used rarely.
The space craft will typically use a lot of fuel to slow to GEO speed, but it may need very little fuel to attach to the SE at much higher altitude. Most of the time the direction will be way off for both the SE and any available bolos. There does not appear to be much utility in either a bolo or SE for reattach. Worse, early SE will have no provision for down climbers to pass up climbers. Do you have an idea for passing?  Neil

That approach need absolute accuracy,allow no mistakes like rotovator malfunctions etc  and with live people going down(in first couple of years mostly will people going down not alot or none othere weight)somehow dangeroues for mass traffic(more traffic more room for mistake).In later phases when elevator goes thousand tons range  may be better to use SE to get that mass slowly to ground asspecialy when shipping thousend tons every couple ours.In theory such a large weight can be done with rotovators but in practice that mean alot of complication and economicaly greater costs.Rotovators are awesome idea for mobile space mining but for safety and wide area possible usages(like tourism) not my first choice.Maybe in pioneer days building and trying to faster increase capacity SE may be alowed rotovators for down traffic(99%mass "astrounats"+climber weight i think that term can stay in use if go that way) and use all ribbon threads for lifting cargo up,adding whole climber mass to counterweight.But except that purpose(adding more mass to counterweight)and reducing time for load(people)to get down to earth (that is why rotovators are so attractive not because people will go faster down ,more because we can then make space for additional weight to go up)there is no more viable reasons to go that way.I posted some ideas  how can be done two way traffic in "like sky lifts"ribbon section , but stay correct statement that rotovators  can make space for more cargo to go up eliminating mass going down(mens and their suplies mostly cant see anothere cargo need to go down for a long time,exept space minning afcourse,and that will go separate way from SE think,exept SE structures like ribbon net and facilities associated with net built at GEO can be used as ports for mining ships)but that going down mass will be in comparation with mass going up only very small part
SE traffic so...,if we can make two way traffic without need to change climbers speed because of that,there is no real need for rotovators because using multhiribbon system we can always send up,ribbon will not be "time taken"only mass taken((mass climber(some kind of reduced capsule)+people for down traffic))
cons* system without rotovators:not all mass going counterweight,minor SE capacity decrease(less then 5%?),( when going down climbers also can repair and add ribon to SE)).


 

                                                                       
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