The entire ride will take about 5 hours, so sit back and enjoy the trip. Well, it's not. Electromagnetic vehicles traveling along the cable could serve as a mass transportation system for moving people, payloads, and power between Earth and space. To keep the cable structure from tumbling to Earth, it would be attached to a large counterbalance mass beyond geostationary orbit, perhaps an asteroid moved into place for that purpose. The cable is basically in orbit around the Earth.
Conceptual designs place the tower construction at an equatorial site.
The extreme height of the lower tower section makes it vulnerable to high winds. In Arthur C. Clarke's novel, Fountains of Paradise , engineers built a space elevator on the mythical island of Taprobane, which was closely based on Sri Lanka, a real island near the southern tip of India. At the moment, Sri Lanka lies between 6 and 10 degrees north. According to Smitherman, construction is not feasible today but it could be toward the end of the 21st century. In 50 years or so, we'll be there.