If an asteroid counts, maybe. It wouldn’t be that expensive to do a miniature test. We could send a satellite to an Earth Trojan and deploy a space elevator made of fishing line.

Fudge, the "not on earth" part might come to bite me. It would be really useful for cislunar space

On bodies with no atmosphere, space guns would likely be much cheaper than building a space elevator. Maybe on Mars we could get an elevator, but Mars's atmosphere is thin enough that gun launches might even be feasible there too.

Agreed for launch, but strong disagree for arrival. Any imports to Luna would likely be cheaper if done via an elevator rather than, say, a soft propulsive landing

Nah, simple; just run the gun in reverse. The spacecraft lines up with the railgun rails, and as it decelerates it charges up the capacitor banks for the next launch.

...Ok, maybe a space elevator would be better for that.

Will there be a space elevator by 2050?, 8k, beautiful, illustration, trending on art station, picture of the day, epic composition