I love the idea of space elevators, but I agree that it probably won't be practical on earth for a long time if ever.
> It needs to never get struck by lightning. It is a particularly attractive lightning rod.
Haven't buildings solved this problem with lightning rods?
On another note, I am personally fascinated by space elevators which is why I am somewhat interested in going back to the moon where we can build a space elevator with today's tech, avoid all of these problems, and have a large body of resources to build/fuel spaceships with.
Yeah, I've never seen a reasonable explanation for that either. If the car is a Faraday cage, and the cable is conductive and grounded, what's the problem?
The only thing I can think of is that all that energy unloaded into cable at once might ablate some of it, causing it to no longer be able to handle the tension.
> It needs to never get struck by lightning. It is a particularly attractive lightning rod.
Haven't buildings solved this problem with lightning rods?
On another note, I am personally fascinated by space elevators which is why I am somewhat interested in going back to the moon where we can build a space elevator with today's tech, avoid all of these problems, and have a large body of resources to build/fuel spaceships with.