One other problem Deller doesn’t mention is that space elevators would be slow. It would actually take, with current technology, three to five days to reach orbit.

(The railroad analogy becomes a good one here. Imagine space Pullman cars).

Because of this, passengers would spend an extended time in the Van Allen Belts, which are an area of high radiation generated by the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetosphere.

Passenger (and some cargo) capsules would thus need to be shielded from radiation. A promising approach is one we discovered by accident. Very low frequency radio (what we more colloquially call shortwave) actually pushes the Van Allen belts further up from the planet in extensive use. Thus, we might be able to use VLFR to push the Van Allen belts away from the elevator tether and capsules. Any thoughts on that?