[Puke]

or they could have several parallel runs, that are interlinked at several intervals. say there are three cable runs. elevator cars could attacth around all three, but would be stable if only two held up.

while that might sound a little sketchy, the real advantage would be having the interlinkings between cables, so you would never really lose any. some would go slack, and you would just have to pick it up from where its dangling, and splice it back in.

or you can just go with the "reel some more out" method, which is probably alot easier, and maybe cheaper. the only problem there, is if 30,000 feet of cable come crashing down on the base-station, and sink it into the ocean.

A small battlegroup of cruisers and a AWACS or three, should be fairly capable of keeping air traffic away from it. I can imagine a little (huge) oceanic platform where cargo liners (and maybe cruise ships) come to load and unload cargo, and you would not want a several tons of cable to come slamming down on this.

the real cruicial time to defend it, would be when the elevator car is under 30 or 70 thousand feet, and would be vulnerable to conventional aircraft attacks.