Fabrication
Because of the Moon's lower gravity and lack of atmosphere, a lunar elevator would have less stringent requirements for the tensile strength of the material making up its cable than an Earth-tethered cable. An Earth-based elevator would require high strength-to-weight materials that are theoretically possible, but not yet fabricated in practice (e.g., carbon nanotubes). Whereas, a lunar elevator could be constructed using high-strength commercially available materials such as Kevlar or Spectra.
Compared to Earth, there would be fewer geographic and political restrictions on the location of the surface connection. The connection point of a lunar elevator would not necessarily have to be directly under its center of gravity, and could even be near the poles, where evidence suggests there might be frozen water in deep craters that never see sunlight; if so, this might be collected and converted into rocket fuel.
Jerome Pearson has proposed a cable design using M5 fiber (See Materials, below) that would have a mass of 6,100 tonnes including a massive counterweight, that would be capable of lifting or depositing loads of 2,000 newtons (450 lbf, or at lunar surface gravity, masses of 1233 kg / 2700 lbm) at the base. The counterweight could potentially be lifted from the lunar surface.
Read more about this topic: Lunar Space Elevator
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