Basically Brad it is two things...sending rockets into space is tremendously expensive and risky...2 shuttles gone in a little over 100 missions at 100's of Millions of dollars a pop. All of that money is factored into a cost per pound of actual delivered payload into space. Right now that between $10,000 to $40,000...this elevator would reduce the cost to $100 a pound supposedly.
Making it easier to launch satellites and eventually everyday Joe Blow into Space if he wants to go. Look at dude who made $10 Million to go to the Space Station on a Russian Rocket, if the dollar savings was realized as above someone could get there for $100,000, very doable for a lot more people. Interesting idea...cool to see where this goes