Trick here is you need to volunteer something spicy first to lay the foundation that it's safe to be spicy.
If you come out of the gate with spicy questions without calibrating what spicy is, expect plain answers regardless of the quality of the questions.
Relatively low hanging fruit is to get them to weigh in on a disagreement with two spicy sides... if it's framed as being between you and someone you respect already, and you volunteer your own spicy take, that provides the safety for the other person to get involved
I suspect that atmosphere composition makes different options more or less viable.
The difficulty/cost getting to orbit probably also would influence where a space elevator lands in terms of developmental priority.