Quote from article:
"Rather than building it from the earth, we will construct it from the space."
I had the same idea during a conversation half a year ago and I hope, I'm not the only one who realized how insanely dangerous it is.
1. Install a space station in a geostationary orbit along the lattitude of Japan.
2. Get several tons of CNT-based lengths of rope into orbit.
3. Lower the rope down to earth. (Maybe first pulled into the right direction by a fist-sized rocket.)
Let's forget how the rope will shift the center-of-mass of the space-station and so on.
Rope: meet atmosphere.
4. You have a rope, harder than a steel cable, dangling down from the sky, swinging back and forth uncontrollably due to winds, establishing essentialy a kilometer-wide pendulum of death.
5. Avoid killing planes and satellites. Hire a good PR-team to battle mass-hysteria.
6. Catch that pendulum of death before its lower end starts killing people, damaging property and causing political fallout with neighbouring countries.
7. Once your plane has catched the lower end of your space-cable mid-flight, avoid being ripped to pieces and/or crushing to death and/or damaging the rope.
8. Transport the lower end to the installation down here on earth.
Good luck with that.
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