Apparently Virgin plans to fly Space ship two in 2010 to 110 kilometers altitude, sub orbital, with a payload of about 1.3 tons. The 20 ton starter ribbon needs to be lofted to about 36,000 kilometers, which may be possible with space ship 3 or some other private corporation. With bad luck on ribbon strength, the starter ribbon may weigh as much as 100 tons.  Neil

Hi Andreas: Does that mean you are doubtful that the oscillating ribbon can get the climber to 91,000 kilometers in one day? From 91,000 kilometers we can crash into any object in the inner solar system without any fuel or propulsion in the payload. We will need some payload delta v to make an orbit insertion or a soft landing at the destination. The space elevator may still be a good idea, even if we have cheap access to LEO and GEO. If we build a 200,000 kilometer space elevator I think we can pass Saturn's orbit in about one year/ 52,000 miles per hour with respect to Earth's surface when the payload leaves the ribbon?   Neil