But once we have this space elevator it's much more feasible to manufacture on the moon.
The moon has negligible atmosphere, so you can use a relatively cheap electromagnetic gun to reach the moon’s escape velocity. If all your doing is sending raw material back that’s a cheaper option.
True. But if you're doing raw material extraction on the moon, you probably also want a cheap way to bring mining equipment down to the lunar surface.
Just run the rail gun in reverse! (Just no fragile humans please unless it's a very long barrel.)
If the equipment is G-force sensitive, an elevator could launch science equipment that previously couldn't be put into space at all.
> science equipment that previously couldn't be put into space at all.
The large amount of science equipment manufactured on the moon?
The large amount of science equipment that could be manufacturer or assembled on the moon.
The paper actually points out and hints some very interesting implications. It could also serve to stabilize a station at the L1 lagrange point. Such a station could be permanent as it would not need reaction mass to maintain orbit. If you couple this with cheap material from the lunar surface, you could create truly massive habitats from thin plastic sheeting from earth and regolith from the moon.