> In LEO you on an elevator would be travelling about 1,400mph That's a pretty significant speed already and it helps that you are already in space. See how ti

> In LEO you on an elevator would be travelling about 1,400mph That's a pretty significant speed already and it helps that you are already in space. See how tiny a Pegasus rocket is, and that one is launched from aircraft, slower, and nowhere near as high as what we are discussing. https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/pegasus-rocket/ https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/pegasus-rocket/ Getting to 100km from ground requires beefy first (even second) stages because you need to accelerate further stages plus the fuel, inside the atmosphere. We can basically pretend we are starting at the second or third stages. It now up to the rocket equation. So, to recap, there's already 1400mph of sideways motion, at a negligible air resistance, 100 to 200km up with vacuum optimized nozzles. It is a massive win. The question is if we could hoist what are still relatively heavy payloads.