I think a mass driver in most cases would be simpler and more economical. We would use them on earth if we didn't need to worry about the atmosphere. A Space e

I think a mass driver in most cases would be simpler and more economical. We would use them on earth if we didn't need to worry about the atmosphere. A Space elevator would require that the body spins fast enough that the centripetal acceleration would equal the gravitational acceleration. Ceres spins roughly every 9 hours - I haven't done the math but that seems like it could work in that case, but even so I would still vote mass driver.