Is there any hope for a partial space elevator?

I have to be not seeing something here.

Imagine two giant winches in orbit, with the best cable we can make "today" and have a hook to lower back to the atmosphere from geostationary. Or would it be too short to reach the flyable portion of the atmosphere? My thoughts were that by flying the payload via a balloon or plane part of the way, the top part could be an elevator.

Would this be easier than the full elevator idea?

Submitted May 22, 2019 at 02:20AM by mad-n-fla http://bit.ly/2X0xQaC via TikTokTikk