Editing Space elevator (section)

===Base station===
Modern concepts for the base station/anchor are typically mobile stations, large oceangoing vessels or other mobile platforms. Mobile base stations would have the advantage over the earlier stationary concepts (with land-based anchors) by being able to maneuver to avoid high winds, storms, and [[space debris]]. Oceanic anchor points are also typically in [[international waters]], simplifying and reducing the cost of negotiating territory use for the base station.<ref name="Edwards" />

Stationary land-based platforms would have simpler and less costly logistical access to the base. They also would have the advantage of being able to be at high altitudes, such as on top of mountains. In an alternate concept, the base station could be a tower, forming a space elevator which comprises both a compression tower close to the surface, and a tether structure at higher altitudes.<ref name="JBIS1999" /> Combining a compression structure with a tension structure would reduce loads from the atmosphere at the Earth end of the tether, and reduce the distance into the Earth's gravity field that the cable needs to extend, and thus reduce the critical strength-to-density requirements for the cable material, all other design factors being equal.