>>1980867A space elevator is a connection between the surface and a point at geosync with a counter weight extending past. It's held in place by matching the orbital velocity to the speed of free fall.
It's also like 65,000km long.
An orbital belt is a ring that is in orbit above the earth's atmosphere so it's not slowing that much due to friction. You keep that ring at orbital velocity then place around the wire a second hollow tube. Like a coax cable for TV.
The outer ring can then decelerate back down from orbital velocity which would cause it to fall to the Earth but if you induce a magnetic field in the inner cable, you can then push back up against that. As inner cable needs to hold up more mass it needs to spin faster. So you magnetically accelerate the inner ring to support the extra mass. You can then reach a point when the out casing is static to the Earth without needing a 65,000km carbon nano tube wire. Everything is just made by steel or iron.
Now that you have a static ring sitting just above the atmosphere you can drop down access wires that are only a few hundred km long. That can become a railroad system climbing up to the ring. It's well within material strength to build those cables.
The ring now gives you cheap access and with the right gear lets you launch payloads using an low orbital sized railgun. Also because it's so close to the Earth you have almost a full gravity of acceleration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMbI6sk-62E 