Maybe I missed something obvious, but how does an orbital ring make rockets obsolete for surface to orbit trips?
replyBecause it's held up by being in orbit (strictly: a bit faster than that), you can by the same process as a maglev hang a stationary-with-respect-to-ground cable off it; and because the cable is only as long as your orbit is high (~200 km or whatever) rather than the 36,000 km you'd need for a full space elevator, we don't need to invent any supermaterials for it.
replyWhat would you like to make this orbital ring out of?
replyStructually, it barely matters. The physics works even if each element isn't joined contiguously to the next, it's just that if you do make it contiguous you can also use it for power delivery and worry less about elements drifting out of alignment.
replyPangolin scales?
replyGoodness no, all subspecies are listed on Wikipedia as having various kinds of "Threatened" conservation statuses.
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