We already monitor very small debris (anything 1cm or larger), and move things out of the way if needed. The ISS moves about 6 times a year, mostly to maintain a very large margin.
Orbits are quite predictable, and moving the tether around isn't all that bad--after all, it makes getting fuel to LEO altitudes cheap. Also, I would expect active sats to avoid the tether, and the presence of a tether will make removal of dead sats both desirable and much easier.
One would also expect the tether to be multi stranded (which is not so hard once you already have one). You would want at least two, up and down. If erosion or collision in LEO looks problematic, you could run even more stands in that area. It's only a few hundred miles.
My main concern is the lack of a good market to justify investing in a tether. It's only a good deal if there are enough trips to amortize the cost. Hopefully we'll see rockets become cheap enough to help develop larger uses in space that will justify something like a tether.
Also I guess any space elevator system will deploy a 'tether maintenance' activity every some interval with intermediate stations. There will be likely bots moving up and down the tether to keep it free from debris and other approaching objects.
Orbits are quite predictable, and moving the tether around isn't all that bad--after all, it makes getting fuel to LEO altitudes cheap. Also, I would expect active sats to avoid the tether, and the presence of a tether will make removal of dead sats both desirable and much easier.
One would also expect the tether to be multi stranded (which is not so hard once you already have one). You would want at least two, up and down. If erosion or collision in LEO looks problematic, you could run even more stands in that area. It's only a few hundred miles.
My main concern is the lack of a good market to justify investing in a tether. It's only a good deal if there are enough trips to amortize the cost. Hopefully we'll see rockets become cheap enough to help develop larger uses in space that will justify something like a tether.