A device that carries people or cargo vertically between floors of a building, hoisting a car with cables and a counterweight and fitted with a safety brake to stop a fall.
The spaceelevator concept involves dropping a 36,000 km cable from an orbiting satellite down to Earth, rather than building a tower upward. If realized, it could reduce space cargo transport costs to between 1/100th and 1/10,000th of rocket launches.