Furthering the concept of the space elevator, I'd imagine something like an artificial ring in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth, with multiple elevators attached to it, all of which connect from major facilities/ countries/ports.  Of course this would mean that all the locations chosen would need to be directly under the ring and perpendicular relative to the point on the Earth's surface from where it's foundation is.  This would essentially necessitate careful planning and positioning of the ring in order for the most optimal orientation that hits as many major locations as possible to be achieved.  The ring itself wouldn't have to be ridiculously thick, as it would have a gigantic circumference.

I would pretty much consider the ring and elevators to be designated as one giant space station, almost entirely dedicated to the launch and reception )from either Earth or space) of equipment or vessels such as telescopes or ships respectively.  Basically, it would serve as an aid to research and space exploration.  I can easily foresee more nefarious uses and occupations/ monopolization occurring with respect to it, with major corporations, excessively rich individuals, [insert some other shady trope], etc., abusing it's detached location for schemes that you've probably seen in some form of media or another.   

While I don't actually think the earth has enough resources for such a thing to be plausible, and that this concept is waaaay too far off, not to mention zany, I think it's a fun addition to the space elevator, which is one concept I genuinely believe we will one day implement.  I'm not even sure how such a thing could be brought about discussing being built, let alone what people you'd need to propose this to.  Who knows though, after all, off-world mining could become a thing like in other staples of sci-fi such as 'Alien', and we could very well accumulate what we need by the time further implementation of things like the the space elevator come around.  Maybe far off in the future we'll have a World council that'll be in charge of approving or disapproving of such a thing (I mean probably not, considering how much so many people here irrationally hate each other).  Regardless, this idea would remain centuries off from now.  Honestly I just think it would be/look cool, and apparently I like Halo so much that even when I think of sci-fi things that have nothing to do with it, it still influences EVERYTHING I think about.