"Up there" is a misnomer as they intend the bottom to interface with existing ground structures. Seriously. Click through to the actual proposal.

http://payload478.cargocollective.com/1/12/384722/11863260/analemma_XFER-left-GIF.gif

Imagine that except it's going somewhere around 350mph and it's the size of an office tower. Let's ignore the hard stuff - pure wind shear on an object pushing through 20km of atmosphere is gonna be something, assuming all the orbital shit works out (it won't work out). Just dealing with the "I want to get on and/or off this thing" means you get to hop onto a gimbaled funride in which -

'k. Area of the Empire State Building is around 90k square feet. That means 300 feet on a side. Say happy fun ball is half of that at 150 feet on a side. For starters you're going to be going from zero mph to 350 mph in the space of about 300 feet.

vf equals vi plus at

350mph equals zero plus (a) (300ft at 350mph)

350mph equals (a) 300ft/(513 ft/second)

350mph equals (a) (.584s)

513 ft/second equals (a)(.584s)

a = 877 ft/second^2

1g = 32 ft/second^2

a = 27.2g

And I mean, that's just linear acceleration. You're also being spun through 180 degrees which some random internet calculator puts at 165g. Wolfram alpha tells me that's roughly ten times the force Jack Nicklaus puts on a golf ball when he tees off.

So fuck all your high-falootin' Keplerian hijinks, Mr. Rocket Scientist, Saint Newton tells me that if you could build this thing, you'd reduce everyone on it to a fine paste the minute they tried to get on or off. And that's without invoking materials science, which has long since run shrieking away.

Clarke and Sheffield introduced space elevators to the world in '79. In '82 Heinlein had terrorists blow one up. And maybe that's why I'm cheering this asshole on - it takes some stones to out-hubris a Skyhook. Dude imagined a building cruising through the air at roughly the speed of a black powder musket ball and worked his way crazier.