Going Up?

It's not really "centrifugal force" that keeps a space elevator’s cable taut—it's actually the balance between gravity and tension from outward inertia.

The Earth's gravity pulls the cable downward, while the counterweight beyond geostationary orbit (above ~35,786 km) provides enough outward force (due to its orbital momentum) to create tension.

This outward pull is often mistaken for centrifugal force, but it's actually the result of the counterweight moving in a stable orbit.