No, space elevators are the golden investment for space travel. It is horrendously expensive to ship materials into orbit from the ground, but after the initial investment you can move materials and personnel into orbit essentially for free. Then you can build your docks, shipyards and spacecraft up there, without the hassle of launches or making them functional on the ground. The elevators would be build as close to the equator as possible, naturally.
Then, when travelling to other worlds, you are already in orbit to start with, so you ship the minimal required supplies to the surface and build a new elevator from orbit (lowering support and scaffold cables down etc) and then you can travel to and from the surface of this new would with the same convenience as on Earth. No more rockets, no more worrying about escape velocity. Major issues with space debris.
EDIT: Damn you, Wings!
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