Alternate Space Launch Methods

A mass driver up the side of a mountain as a first stage might work, but, yeah, it's not going to get you fully into orbit.
 
gigantic elevators
Obviously a huge capital expense, but potentially very, very efficient. Ideally you have a huge cargo flow (to justify the expense) and equal mass flows up and down (to balance energy).

An alternative I have seen mentioned is the rotating elevator. Instead of a satellite in geosynch orbit and a fixed elevator, the satellite is much closer and rotates. It has three very long arms, which act as elevators. The tip of each arm periodically contacts Earth surface for a few minutes for cargo exchange, then rotates back into space for cargo transfer to an interplanetary vessel.

just fire a vessel... out of the atmosphere
This is fine for steampunk, but if you want anything vaguely acceptable in terms of real physics, NO.

The "catapult" method requires that the payload have its maximum velocity at its minimum altitude, where atmosphere is densest. This maximizes air drag losses, and if the catapult is a significant contributor, they will be HUGE. With a rocket, the engine efficiency is much less, but the velocity is lowest when air is densest, minimizing drag losses.

If you launch straight up, to punch most efficiently through the atmosphere, the acceleration forces are enormous and so is the friction heat in the troposphere. Forget about crews, or even any kind of structure. You are firing a molten blob into orbit.

If you launch horizontally, you can have reasonable accelerations, but of course you have to go through a lot more atmosphere since you start off sideways. Not worth trying by any stretch of the imagination.

Of course, if you have no atmosphere (Moon or Mercury) a catapult/mass driver is great - no disadvantage at all to horizontal launch. Might be useful also on Mars, with a very thin atmosphere.


Launching from a high-altitude platform (scramjet or perhaps even airship) is a good option. Use jets, instead of inefficient rockets, to get through the dense lower atmosphere. IIRC, the original shuttle designs used this idea (with conventional turbojets).

Rockets are wasteful of energy, especially in atmosphere and against high gravity, but according to some (e.g. Drexler, 1987) the main cost of rocket launch is not the fuel, but the engine. 100% recovery of rocket engines would help reduce launch costs. As early as the Seventies, single-stage-to-orbit fully recoverable heavy rocket launchers were considered superior.
 
The Launch Loop is a major variation on the theme of a catapult that has not yet been mentioned here and seems workable to me. It gets the actual catapult well above the dense atmosphere of sea level.

One can also view the Launch Loop as a variation on the theme of a Space Fountain or even as a form of Space Tower.

Mind, I'm thinking of how we can have much cheaper access to orbit today. A thousand years from now, I'd think antigravity, spacewarp tunnels, Transporters a la Star Trek, a Tardis indeed--or even something even more ASB not the wackiest SF writer has thought of still yet might be the obvious and routine method. A thousand years from now, either the technology will be indistinguishable from magic to us, or our tech will be indistinguishable from magic to them--if we collapse as a technological civilization there's a good chance we might never recover.

To me the launch loop concept looks doable immediately with off the shelf tech.

Also, in addition to using launch loops to put objects in orbit, I'd think a network of them, say ten spotted around the planet, could allow suborbital ballistic transport--get catapulted from one Loop to another. (The drawback here is safety. What happens if a Loop breaks down has been considered and from what I've read been dealt with well, but I'd think a major world-class conurbation would still want these things to be a fair distance away, so there goes the speed advantage--you'd lose a lot of time flying out to a Loop launch station, then at the other end flying from there to your actual destination.

After a generation or so of Launch Loops, it might then be time to start developing really ambitious systems on a global scale.
 
You mention aliens and interstellar travel: what sort of technology is used for that? Perhaps you can use an adaptation of this to describe launches.

My first thoughts also ask the question in how 'first contact' was made between the alien races. Did aliens come to Earth or humans visit the aliens, or was contact initially made via discovering radio transmissions? How this occurs would have a big impact on the potential technology being used.
If the civilisations are in some sort of economic trade union, that suggests they've 'known' each other for some time, and so any technological inequalities would have been pretty much evened out through mutual agreed tech sharing.

I can imagine a jump gate being used for the interstellar travel - perhaps as giant 'stargates' in orbit around the planets which can be 'tuned' to each respective frequency. Perhaps, in this scenario, future scientists have worked on, or are attempting to develop ground based versions?
Such a technology could ultimately lead to the civilizations circumventing the cumbersome and difficult to maintain space-born jump gates completely, and just connect via a star-gate network. Maybe that could be something for the future of your timeline.

As for launch methods themselves, I would suggest looking at ways to generate anti-gravity and/or Higgs bosons to manipulate the mass of the vehicle.

Maybe the Interstellar Union has discovered a form of dark matter comprising of a fermionic graviton and Higgs boson that can be used as material for the drives. Spin-5/4 Gravitinoes would produce a repulsive G-field, which could additionally be used in a hypothetical wormhole/jump gate technology. They send mine-ships to retrieve the material, and these ships are one of very few that have on-board jump gate technology, enabling them to explore regions beyond the realms of the Union.

The Higgs-field generator could produce a sort of bubble of Higgs bosons set at particular resonances which 'trick' the surrounding space into giving the encompassed vehicle near zero mass. Your space craft can then literally float off out of the atmosphere with minimal propulsive energy.


Twi
 
PLAUSIBLE PHYSICS
Rocket
Scramjet
Orion
Gun
Space Elevator + variants (such as the spinning balloon thing, or the LEO railed space elevator)
Laser Launch
Magnetic Catapult

EXOTIC PLANETS
What about a planet where the atmosphere is thick enough that a high-flying aircraft, bird or balloon can reach escape velocity?

EXOTIC/IMPLAUSIBLE PHYSICS
Teleport by folding space
Teleport by disintegrate (disintegration may be optional) and duplicate

OTHER
Telephone
Fax
Internet

(okay I'm joking about the last 3)

I think you can add electromagnetic radiation beam to the plausible list. I think NASA have already achieved that with a small model aircraft. V.similar to the laser beam. The benefit is that you are not having to lift your fuel as well as the craft. I think you still need propellant, but there is still a lot less mass to lift.

One idea I've wondered about is using water vapour in a tropical air. The idea would be that you would suck in the water vapour to use as propellant (when the vapour is condenses and then used as propellant after being heated). Not sure if it's allowed by physics. I think it is, in the sense it is working a bit like a jet plane.
 
You mention aliens and interstellar travel: what sort of technology is used for that? Perhaps you can use an adaptation of this to describe launches.

My first thoughts also ask the question in how 'first contact' was made between the alien races. Did aliens come to Earth or humans visit the aliens, or was contact initially made via discovering radio transmissions? How this occurs would have a big impact on the potential technology being used.
If the civilisations are in some sort of economic trade union, that suggests they've 'known' each other for some time, and so any technological inequalities would have been pretty much evened out through mutual agreed tech sharing.

I can imagine a jump gate being used for the interstellar travel - perhaps as giant 'stargates' in orbit around the planets which can be 'tuned' to each respective frequency. Perhaps, in this scenario, future scientists have worked on, or are attempting to develop ground based versions?
Such a technology could ultimately lead to the civilizations circumventing the cumbersome and difficult to maintain space-born jump gates completely, and just connect via a star-gate network. Maybe that could be something for the future of your timeline.

As for launch methods themselves, I would suggest looking at ways to generate anti-gravity and/or Higgs bosons to manipulate the mass of the vehicle.

Maybe the Interstellar Union has discovered a form of dark matter comprising of a fermionic graviton and Higgs boson that can be used as material for the drives. Spin-5/4 Gravitinoes would produce a repulsive G-field, which could additionally be used in a hypothetical wormhole/jump gate technology. They send mine-ships to retrieve the material, and these ships are one of very few that have on-board jump gate technology, enabling them to explore regions beyond the realms of the Union.

The Higgs-field generator could produce a sort of bubble of Higgs bosons set at particular resonances which 'trick' the surrounding space into giving the encompassed vehicle near zero mass. Your space craft can then literally float off out of the atmosphere with minimal propulsive energy.


Twi
me? the basic idea is that the story itself takes place a thousand years after a nuclear Third Total Earth War (WW3) and humanity unites over time as a single Republic of Humankind. im not gonna go into much more detail than that because its not the focus of this thread, but after one to a few hundred years of unity, mankind begins to expand outward into space and colonizes a few planets in the solar system before they move on out of their home system. once they do, they encounter representatives of a kind of galactic economic community. with the aliens, i plan to make reference to various alien and paranormal conspiracies, such as the purported "grinning man" and some other cryptids/purported aliens being members of alien races. so yes, earth would have been visited by aliens in the past and some cryptids and other bizarre occurrences could be attributed to them, but thats beside the point. they would likely have had some form of radio contact before direct encounters; its also entirely possible that the galactic community would have provisions to not interfere with developing worlds, at least not on a large scale

yes, over time the technological level of various alien cultures becomes more or less the same. the main reason im looking into alternatives for space launches is to get ideas for something that looks, sounds, and feels genuinely alien; basically, whatever was infeasible for earth IS feasible for a given species of aliens because of how different their planet, biology, and way of thinking is

i was thinking of something kind of like jumpgates, but was imagining that theyd be more like those in cowboy bebop where its more like a long tunnel in which vehicles are inherently accelerated to greater speeds than are allowed elsewhere, basically the interspace highways. i think that, even by a thousand years in the future, the technology probably wouldnt exist to travel enormous distances very quickly. basically, there probably wouldnt be teleportation (that would probably be very rudimentary and dangerous if it does exist) or light speed like in star trek and star wars, respectively. i suppose you could imagine the starship tech level as being kind of like that of The Race
 
me? the basic idea is that the story itself takes place a thousand years after a nuclear Third Total Earth War (WW3) and humanity unites over time as a single Republic of Humankind. im not gonna go into much more detail than that because its not the focus of this thread, but after one to a few hundred years of unity, mankind begins to expand outward into space and colonizes a few planets in the solar system before they move on out of their home system. once they do, they encounter representatives of a kind of galactic economic community. with the aliens, i plan to make reference to various alien and paranormal conspiracies, such as the purported "grinning man" and some other cryptids/purported aliens being members of alien races. so yes, earth would have been visited by aliens in the past and some cryptids and other bizarre occurrences could be attributed to them, but thats beside the point. they would likely have had some form of radio contact before direct encounters; its also entirely possible that the galactic community would have provisions to not interfere with developing worlds, at least not on a large scale

yes, over time the technological level of various alien cultures becomes more or less the same. the main reason im looking into alternatives for space launches is to get ideas for something that looks, sounds, and feels genuinely alien; basically, whatever was infeasible for earth IS feasible for a given species of aliens because of how different their planet, biology, and way of thinking is

i was thinking of something kind of like jumpgates, but was imagining that theyd be more like those in cowboy bebop where its more like a long tunnel in which vehicles are inherently accelerated to greater speeds than are allowed elsewhere, basically the interspace highways. i think that, even by a thousand years in the future, the technology probably wouldnt exist to travel enormous distances very quickly. basically, there probably wouldnt be teleportation (that would probably be very rudimentary and dangerous if it does exist) or light speed like in star trek and star wars, respectively. i suppose you could imagine the starship tech level as being kind of like that of The Race

Hi Oshron. You'll have to forgive me if I sounded rude in anyway. Yes, I was speaking to you. In hindsight I should have made that clear. :)
I tend to be quite visual and get something like an interactive movie running in my head, so when I was reading this thread, all the posters appeared in my living room discussing this theme. I just turned to you, whilst sipping a pint of cider, and posed those questions to you...
As a fellow writer I can understand not wanting to reveal too much. For what it's worth, most of my stories centre on alternate realities. I'm currently working on a series about a gang of teenagers from a world where travel between Alternate Earths is the norm... I can't say any more than that for now though (and I don't want to go to Off Topic or hijack your rather interesting thread).


Back to the topic in question though: If you're not keen on the idea of Higgs field bubbles, then how about a launch technology based on high temperature superconductors? They'd work using a magnetic launch system.
I'd find it strange that a world that's developed commercial interstellar travel hasn't tackled the launch problem with at least similar technology.
Other possibilities are some sort of extreme ion drive or fusion reactor. In these instances though, you have the problem of the g-force because of the planetary escape velocity - which may pose to be a health problem for many people.
You could, in that case, use one of the more conventional launch methods described by others in this thread, and place the passengers in some sort of slumberous state (stasis or sleep induced). The launch anaesthetic state protects them from the forces of the launch - perhaps by placing the bodies in some sort of biotic fluid which absorbs a large percentage of the force?

In any case, I'd love to read your novel once it's complete. :)

Twi
 
Hi Oshron. You'll have to forgive me if I sounded rude in anyway. Yes, I was speaking to you. In hindsight I should have made that clear. :)

As a fellow writer I can understand not wanting to reveal too much. For what it's worth, most of my stories centre on alternate realities. I'm currently working on a series about a gang of teenagers from a world where travel between Alternate Earths is the norm... I can't say any more than that for now though (and I don't want to go to Off Topic or hijack your rather interesting thread).


Back to the topic in question though: If you're not keen on the idea of Higgs field bubbles, then how about a launch technology based on high temperature superconductors? They'd work using a magnetic launch system.
I'd find it strange that a world that's developed commercial interstellar travel hasn't tackled the launch problem with at least similar technology.
Other possibilities are some sort of extreme ion drive or fusion reactor. In these instances though, you have the problem of the g-force because of the planetary escape velocity - which may pose to be a health problem for many people.
You could, in that case, use one of the more conventional launch methods described by others in this thread, and place the passengers in some sort of slumberous state (stasis or sleep induced). The launch anaesthetic state protects them from the forces of the launch - perhaps by placing the bodies in some sort of biotic fluid which absorbs a large percentage of the force?

In any case, I'd love to read your novel once it's complete. :)

Twi
no, no, you didnt sound rude at all :D i just wasnt sure because you didnt address anyone in particular. its not really because i dont want to reveal much about it, but because the actual aliens arent really relevant to this discussion, though this discussion may well give me some inspiration. after the whole tomato paste thing about the gun-barrel launch method, i started thinking that maybe that would be good for a non-carbon-based life form, basically living rocks, which wouldnt be turned into goop by being shot out of their atmosphere, for instance

i think i may have accidentally skipped over the higgs field bubble part from before, so ill have to look back on that later. a magnetic launch certainly sounds like a cool idea.

some sort of stasis pod would probably be required for earlier methods of common departure--i imagine the reason no one's taken on alternative launch methods in the OTL present is because its infeasible with how relatively uncommon it is to launch people into space right now. but i think after a thousand years and help from the other aliens, such problems may well be resolved completely.

another idea i had recently was that maybe VTOLs evolve into the first commonplace civilian spacecraft. yknow how in fiction pretty much all spacecraft which arent rockets just glide effortlessly in and out of different atmospheres? it could very well be kind of like that with VTOL-like spaceships, though they would probably need much stronger and more efficient methods of propulsion to do so

and another idea occurred to me earlier today. what if an airship or something similar just drifted out of a planet's orbit in order to leave the atmosphere? obviously, a real one would need to be airtight and capable of enduring the hazards of space, but what does everyone think about that idea? im just spitballin' here, looking at any possibility
 
and another idea occurred to me earlier today. what if an airship or something similar just drifted out of a planet's orbit in order to leave the atmosphere? obviously, a real one would need to be airtight and capable of enduring the hazards of space, but what does everyone think about that idea? im just spitballin' here, looking at any possibility

Airships fly because they're lighter than air. They're not lighter than vacuum, so they won't just keep on drifting up out of the atmosphere (at some point they reach an equilibrium with the medium they're in). You can get above a good deal of the atmosphere that way, reducing the amount another launch system has to punch through of course.
 
one method falls, but another rises to take its place :) what about the launch of small air/spacecraft from such airships into the atmosphere?
 
I think you can add electromagnetic radiation beam to the plausible list. I think NASA have already achieved that with a small model aircraft. V.similar to the laser beam. The benefit is that you are not having to lift your fuel as well as the craft. I think you still need propellant, but there is still a lot less mass to lift.

Electromagnetic radiation is light (they're two terms for the same thing). Now, if you meant some kind of particle-beam system, no, that wouldn't work the way you think it would work. Mostly, it would end up bathing everyone on board in loads of hard (ionizing, ie. deadly) radiation (and whoever was at the launch site). Not very good for much, cargo or human. And you would still need plenty of propellant, just the same as with a laser system. Furthermore, particle beams don't behave that well in the atmosphere--too many atoms around. They have a habit of spreading out and scattering (less so if you use an electron beam). Laser and particle-beam systems do have a high ISP, last I heard,

One idea I've wondered about is using water vapour in a tropical air. The idea would be that you would suck in the water vapour to use as propellant (when the vapour is condenses and then used as propellant after being heated). Not sure if it's allowed by physics. I think it is, in the sense it is working a bit like a jet plane.

No, this would be inefficient. It would make more sense to use a LACE, scramjet, or LOX-extraction engine than to try to extract a minuscule amount of water vapor (and even in the most humid locations, the amount of water vapor is pretty minuscule compared to oxygen, which of course can be used as an oxidizer, or nitrogen, which can be used as propellant). The reason is gravity losses--you want to get into orbit as quickly as possible to avoid having to waste propellant keeping yourself from falling down.

indigotwilight said:
You could, in that case, use one of the more conventional launch methods described by others in this thread, and place the passengers in some sort of slumberous state (stasis or sleep induced). The launch anaesthetic state protects them from the forces of the launch - perhaps by placing the bodies in some sort of biotic fluid which absorbs a large percentage of the force?

That's not really necessary or desirable. Even today's rocket-based launchers rarely exceed 3 Gs, which doesn't really require such elaborate protections, and those sorts of thing are very heavy. If the G-forces are much greater, they simply won't be rated to launch humans. Any of the infrastructural lift types--launch loops, space elevators, and like--will be hardly any more stressful on travelers than Earth itself is.

Gunnarnz said:
Airships fly because they're lighter than air. They're not lighter than vacuum, so they won't just keep on drifting up out of the atmosphere (at some point they reach an equilibrium with the medium they're in). You can get above a good deal of the atmosphere that way, reducing the amount another launch system has to punch through of course.

You may be interested in rockoons, which were sounding rockets lifted by balloons before firing (thus the name--ROCKet ballOON). They have some pretty significant disadvantages, though, so I don't think they're likely to be used in future space launch plans. Mostly, you have to build a pretty big balloon to lift a rocket, without getting a proportional benefit from that lift (it would be cheaper to just build a first stage).
 
If you want to find a unique way for aliens to develop space travel it's important to consider the technological evolution of the aliens. We use rockets now because because we invented gunpowder and made guns. If the aliens use weapons based on magnetism (like a railgun), they would probably come up with a way to use that for space travel.

Maybe they can have railguns on the side of the space craft that 'shoot' particles from the atmosphere down, pushing the ship up. As the atmosphere gets thinner they get less lift but also less drag. Wouldn't work in a vacuum, and probably not in other atmospheres
 
no, no, you didnt sound rude at all :D i just wasnt sure because you didnt address anyone in particular. its not really because i dont want to reveal much about it, but because the actual aliens arent really relevant to this discussion, though this discussion may well give me some inspiration. after the whole tomato paste thing about the gun-barrel launch method, i started thinking that maybe that would be good for a non-carbon-based life form, basically living rocks, which wouldnt be turned into goop by being shot out of their atmosphere, for instance

i think i may have accidentally skipped over the higgs field bubble part from before, so ill have to look back on that later. a magnetic launch certainly sounds like a cool idea.

some sort of stasis pod would probably be required for earlier methods of common departure--i imagine the reason no one's taken on alternative launch methods in the OTL present is because its infeasible with how relatively uncommon it is to launch people into space right now. but i think after a thousand years and help from the other aliens, such problems may well be resolved completely.

another idea i had recently was that maybe VTOLs evolve into the first commonplace civilian spacecraft. yknow how in fiction pretty much all spacecraft which arent rockets just glide effortlessly in and out of different atmospheres? it could very well be kind of like that with VTOL-like spaceships, though they would probably need much stronger and more efficient methods of propulsion to do so

and another idea occurred to me earlier today. what if an airship or something similar just drifted out of a planet's orbit in order to leave the atmosphere? obviously, a real one would need to be airtight and capable of enduring the hazards of space, but what does everyone think about that idea? im just spitballin' here, looking at any possibility

I'm warming to the VTOL (vertical take off and landing) idea, although you'd still need the propulsive energy required to escape the planet. On board nuclear fusion reactors are an answer, but in your post nuclear war time line, how likely are the people willing to accept such a technology in its early stages?

Unless you want to write a fantasy victorian space world with a universe ruled by Newtonian physics, space faring airbaloons are not realistic. The Archimedes principle tends to get in the way. If you want to go this route, however, then you'll need to alter the physical constants and 'rules' of physics.

May I ask, how central is this launch knowledge to your story characters? In my stories, the protagonists just take inter-reality travel for granted. I'd draw similarities to asking how many people use internet or text messaging and consider how it actually works, rather than taking it as the norm. Sure, I have some rather exotic methods to describe how intra-reality travel works, but it is not really central to the stories as the characters don't really know how the 'engine' functions. It just does, and they send it to a mechanic to be fixed if it goes 'pop'.
 
I'm warming to the VTOL (vertical take off and landing) idea, although you'd still need the propulsive energy required to escape the planet. On board nuclear fusion reactors are an answer, but in your post nuclear war time line, how likely are the people willing to accept such a technology in its early stages?

VTOLs have been proposed in real life, as well (google "DC-X," for instance). They're actually one of the two most common fully-reusable design types (along with VTHL--Vertical Takeoff, Horizontal Landing, ie. the Space Shuttle). Even with plain old chemical rockets, they're just about practical (more so if you use a two stage architecture). For nuclear rockets, well, you run into an engine T/W issue that makes things difficult. There might be ways around that, though, like LANTR (LOX-augmented NTR--IOW, a NTR that has basically a conventional chemical engine strapped on the back for extra thrust when needed.
 
I'm warming to the VTOL (vertical take off and landing) idea, although you'd still need the propulsive energy required to escape the planet. On board nuclear fusion reactors are an answer, but in your post nuclear war time line, how likely are the people willing to accept such a technology in its early stages?

Unless you want to write a fantasy victorian space world with a universe ruled by Newtonian physics, space faring airbaloons are not realistic. The Archimedes principle tends to get in the way. If you want to go this route, however, then you'll need to alter the physical constants and 'rules' of physics.

May I ask, how central is this launch knowledge to your story characters? In my stories, the protagonists just take inter-reality travel for granted. I'd draw similarities to asking how many people use internet or text messaging and consider how it actually works, rather than taking it as the norm. Sure, I have some rather exotic methods to describe how intra-reality travel works, but it is not really central to the stories as the characters don't really know how the 'engine' functions. It just does, and they send it to a mechanic to be fixed if it goes 'pop'.
i imagine that, by the time the technology is developed, no one who witnessed the war first hand would be alive anymore; there would probably be large-scale civilian spacecraft before the smaller, one-man vessels (think of it like star destroyers before x-wings). i imagine that post-war early human spacecraft would still largely rely on rocket propulsion simply because thats what they are most familiar with, a tried and true way of getting to space and even to other worlds. it would be later, though, that they would explore other methods of leaving an atmosphere, possibly by around the time they reach mars (not necessarily colonization, mind you, just getting a lander there with live human passengers and getting them home safely)

but as for small-scale nuclear reactors in these one-man vessels, there would probably still be some hesitation even a few hundred years after the end of the war; another idea with the Republic of Humankind is that they have this kind of "foundation myth" that centers around unity and equality, so the war would be well known to everyone on the planet. i imagine, though, that after a while they would decide that nuclear reactors are the best way to do it, at least until they have a better alternative

for the balloons, i was really just asking out of curiosity ;)

the launch knowledge isnt really important to the story itself; im mainly exploring possibilities to make this universe seem more plausible and unique. basically, instead of every alien culture going through the same technological developments as humans, theyre all roughly similar, but at the same time different. for example, maybe only humans and one or two other peoples will have developed nuclear weapons and power independently because their planets have more uranium on them than other ones do, while some cultures may not have developed rigid-wing aircraft for one reason or another.

as for teh characters, at least some of them would know roughly how it works as they use a relatively large starship (stolen from a private navy or something :D) as their main mode of transportation and living quarters. the captain, first mate, and navigator (actually a sentient computer program) would probably have relatively extensive knowledge while the others wouldnt
 
The Launch Loop is a major variation on the theme of a catapult that has not yet been mentioned here and seems workable to me. It gets the actual catapult well above the dense atmosphere of sea level.

One can also view the Launch Loop as a variation on the theme of a Space Fountain or even as a form of Space Tower.

Mind, I'm thinking of how we can have much cheaper access to orbit today. A thousand years from now, I'd think antigravity, spacewarp tunnels, Transporters a la Star Trek, a Tardis indeed--or even something even more ASB not the wackiest SF writer has thought of still yet might be the obvious and routine method. A thousand years from now, either the technology will be indistinguishable from magic to us, or our tech will be indistinguishable from magic to them--if we collapse as a technological civilization there's a good chance we might never recover.

To me the launch loop concept looks doable immediately with off the shelf tech.

Also, in addition to using launch loops to put objects in orbit, I'd think a network of them, say ten spotted around the planet, could allow suborbital ballistic transport--get catapulted from one Loop to another. (The drawback here is safety. What happens if a Loop breaks down has been considered and from what I've read been dealt with well, but I'd think a major world-class conurbation would still want these things to be a fair distance away, so there goes the speed advantage--you'd lose a lot of time flying out to a Loop launch station, then at the other end flying from there to your actual destination.

After a generation or so of Launch Loops, it might then be time to start developing really ambitious systems on a global scale.

I mentioned that earlier and even posted the same link:mad:
 
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