Good backgrounder, dated 10/2008.
The model I remember posits a 69,000 mile tether with a very small counterweight. The appeal to me is that it can use this as a thrustless ballistic launch system – a headstart for ion thrusters- thus relieving the ship’s designers and operators from the delta-vee constraints of escaping Earth’s gravity for round trip vessels.
We’re going to need to move this branch of the thread to its own, new thread, btw.
