From what I’ve read so far, a space elevator’s counterweight must extend beyond geostationary orbit in order to keep tension on the tether. If you’re higher than GEO, your orbital period will be longer than a day, so how is the counterweight kept stationary when it’s higher than GEO?
In: Physics
You want the center of gravity of the whole space elevator to be at geosynchronous orbit. So you need a counterweight at a higher orbit to balance out the cable below the CoG.
In KSR’s Red Mars, they called for a Martian Space Elevator of approx 10 meters diameter of diamond/carbon construction, from boring out a captured carbon rich asteroid. Wild!
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