Well if cheap, pragmatic Americans don't build it. I have no doubt the Chinese or somebody else with more cash than brains will. People criticized Apollo and the Space Shuttle as being impossible and a waste of money.(which they probably were) At least if this works you could no doubt expect a return. Active control costs would probably be a fraction of the profit so only the engineering and initial cost of set-up would be the issue.
People criticized Apollo and the Space Shuttle as being ... a waste of money.(which they probably were)
Problem was it did not achieve the "patriotic" and nationalistic objectives of beating the Russians in many avenues when it came to space exploration and military weapons development.
It was also a costly affair for which money would have been better spent on welfare or the military industrial complex depending on whatever political leaning you might have. While the Shuttle was not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be it's overall design was inefficient for the mission it was given in both a public and private policy sense. Also there is a point of diminishing returns when you start thinking you can just appropriate more money for a project, the government budget is not unlimited and you can't just keep printing more money. Currency devaluation, inflation, increased taxes, a rob "Peter to pay Paul" mentality and misappropriation of funds can result from such thinking.
I am not debating whether a mere 6 percent of the budget would have prevented us from "printing money or crippled the economy" obviously it wouldn't have. Putting that money into more focused goals for enriching the public in a more direct sense than space travel might very well have had positive consequences, though. That is not to say that NASA has not enriched the public in many ways, either. Competition is a good thing but spending your money wisely can be just as rewarding. Many other nations on the planet have a better quality of life for less government dollars spent than we do. Admittedly, we did have to fight the Cold War with one hand tied behind our backs which in turn gave rise to the need for a large and expensive military industrial complex. Also the Soviets did develop a better Shuttle called the Buran but there government and economy failed before they could put it into service. The moon landings were part PR stunt and part voyage of discovery. Even if the Russians had mounted a successful moon landing it is very likely that after a few landings the magic would have worn off for them as it did for us and we all would have moved onto something else less costly and more rewarding. Mining resources from the Moon during the Apollo era would have been even more technically and economically unfeasible than it is now. I think in time mining resources from space and more advance manned exploration of space will become feasible but it will take time and some sort of economic rationale not just "patriotic showmanship".
Did the team look at stability issues with a lunar space elevator? There are several significant problems I see:(1) Because the moon's orbit is elliptical, L1 and L2 are not at fixed locations. They vary as the Earth-Moon distance varies.(2) L1 and L2 are "negative stability" points, in that if you drift away from them, you keep drifting away. Given that L1 and L2 are moving, you have a where, rather than the tether's CM drifting away from the L1/L2 point, the point drifts away from t he CM - but the effect is the same.(3) The sub-Lagrangian point is not fixed, due to libration in longitude (an effect of the Moon's orbital eccentricity. You'd get a "tug and relax" effect as the ground station moved away from, the back towards the sub-Lagrangian point, causing the CM for move away from he Lagrangian point.The difference between a terrestrial and a lunar space elevator is what they're in orbit about. A terrestrial space elevator is in orbit around the parent body - the Earth. Assuming a "floating" (detached) end point at the ground, if the tether drifts a bit, it stays in Earth orbit, and doesn't stray to far (n orbital terms). A lunar space elevator, however, is NOT in orbit around the parent body - it's not in a selenosynchronous orbit. It's in Earth orbit; and if it drifts a bit, it stays in earth orbit - and departs the vicinity of the moon. Or comes crashing down onto the lunar surface.I'd go so far as to say that I don't think a lunar space elevator would survive for one lunar day - a single orbit around the Earth - given the instabilities involved.