Alternative Launch Processes

[coliver988]

as per a (large) number of threads, we have a lot of competing ideas about launching from a planet. Personally, I'd go with a mix of a few things.

anyway, I was perusing Blevin's Megastructure book and he mentioned a Lofstrom loop which would work as well. Image from the Wiki. And I also am reminded of Fireball XL's launch (YouTube vid) which uses a rocket sled to help propel the ship.

I've not read all the threads recently so may have forgotten, but we cannot rule out world infrastructure as well as an aid to getting a 1G ship off a higher G world.

 

[kilemall]

As I recall Star Wars had a repulsor assist at the starport.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I've not read all the threads recently so may have forgotten, but we cannot rule out world infrastructure as well as an aid to getting a 1G ship off a higher G world.

True ... but ... such mega-infrastructure installations should not be thought of as ubiquitous (even at type A starports), let alone "free for use, just by asking" ...

Seriously?
A 2000 km long runway track 80 km off the surface ...?

Theoretically possible?
With enough Time, Tools and Tech Manuals™ ... sure!

Reasonable/practical?
Pull the other one, guv'nah.



If the above image was of a "monorail" track that was 1m² in cross section for its entire usable length (to make the math easy) ... and you translate that volume into starship tonnage ... you're looking at an installation "weighing in" at close to 200,000 tons of "hull" for 3000km worth of "monorail track" (loop, ramp, flat, ramp, loop) and "who knows how many square kilometers" of planetary surface real estate that needs to be dedicated to the project (those stabilization cables have to anchor SOMEWHERE...).



No no ... the far more practical solution is ... getting an Orbital Tow Tug.
Either dock your craft internally into a hangar bay ... or externally as a "slung load" to another craft (that is "all power plant and maneuver drive") ... which can DRAG your underpowered for the local gravity 1G maneuver drive craft from surface to orbit.

In CT, you'd basically treat your entire starship as "cargo" for an orbital transfer.

LBB2.81, p9:

TRADE CUSTOMS
Goods taken on in orbit are delivered when placed in orbit around the destination. Goods taken on on a planetary surface are delivered when off-loaded on the surface of the destination. This custom applies to cargo, passengers, and mail.
At any location with a class A, B, or C starport, shuttles routinely operate between orbit and world surface. Typical shuttle price is Cr10 per ton and Cr20 to Cr120 per passenger.

So if you've got a 200 ton Free Trader that needs to make a delivery to the surface of a world that your Free Trader can't land on (more than once ... ... because Lithobraking IS A THING™) ... you can use an orbital shuttle to transport your ENTIRE SHIP (one way) for a price of Cr2000 (200 tons @ Cr10 per ton, the cargo price).

Alternatively, you could berth your starship at the highport and use the orbital shuttle service to move your passengers, cargo and/or crew between the surface and orbit ... for less than the price of using an orbital shuttle to move your entire starship.

Just a thought ...



Trust me ... orbital shuttle craft are going to wind up being a "cheaper" option @ TL=9+ than any kind of MEGAstructure project (as alluded to above). And that's before thinking about the need to provide security and engineering maintenance support for any such MEGAstructure associated with a starport.



If your starship can't launch itself from a high gravity world ... find someone else who can (such as an orbital shuttle service) and pay THEM to lift your starship into orbit.
It's really Not That Hard™ ... except at type D-X starports, I guess ...

 

[Condottiere]

Skijump and jettisonable rocket booster undercarriage.

 

[coliver988]

this is a SF game, not a real world simulator. I was merely positing there are other possibilities to get off the surface of a planet. If I want a 2K long launch tube, why not? I play to have fun, not simulate real world things.

there are also sky hooks, space elevators, and a myriad of other options. To limit myself to what is practical for a game I play in my head seems counter-intuitive to me. and, to say what I said in the Lanth thread that sort of started this one, societies are going to be different and have different reasons for doing things. Just because it is not practical does not mean it is stupid. The world and universe is full of vanity projects that make no sense to people. Heck - even RPGs make no sense to a lot of people!

 

[coliver988]

now to find a TL6-A world in MTU that did not have access to grav for some reason, and plop down a 2,000 km vacuum launch rail.

years ago I read a book with a sky hook, and it was actually touching the planet to get ice or something. a person was on one of the ice chunks when it got lifted. He died. I have no idea what that book was but it was in the 70s or 80s that I read it, and it may have been a good deal older by then as well. Maybe Clarke's Fountains of Paradise?

edit: and I do have the Fireball Tech manual. So I could just stick that whole installation somewhere.

 

[Spinward Flow]

there are also sky hooks, space elevators,

Both of which require the low orbit bands to be completely cleared of inertial orbiting satellites (natural and/or artificial), in order to avoid the opportunity for collisions (at orbital speeds and kinetic energies! ). Space elevators out to geosynchronous orbit require all inertial orbiting satellites (natural and/or artificial) to be cleared from all orbits out to BEYOND geosynchronous orbit!

If you don't clear those orbits ... Kessler Syndrome is not a question of IF but of WHEN.

To limit myself to what is practical for a game I play in my head seems counter-intuitive to me.

Maybe ... but it's also the more INTELLECTUALLY HONEST approach to the imagining.
It's also the difference between Good Writing™ and Atrociously Bad Fan Fiction™.
I mean, we've all seen youtube videos pop up from time to time about how various fictionalize cultures are "too stupid to live" (for reasons various and sundry) ... and the cause for those assessments is almost always because the creative "vision" behind them wasn't concerned enough with getting the worldbuilding RIGHT in a way that was functional.

Original series Star Trek, with a starship Enterprise designed by Matt Jeffries ... MADE SENSE.
All you had to do is LOOK AT IT and know that such a starship was intentionally designed for SPACE ... not planetary atmospheres or "landing" on a planetary surface. The starship design was "orbit and beyond" very intentionally.

Then you get to the abominations of (modern audience... ) Kurtzman Trek ... and everything is just SO STUPID as to insult the intelligence of anyone who dares to peek behind the curtain. NOTHING makes sense, from an engineering/intellectual honesty standpoint. It's all slapdash "anything goes!" nonsense and mockery of the source material (the hopeful future imagined by Gene Roddenberry). It's simply TOO DUMB to be believable, even on its own terms.

If you aren't willing to limit your imagination to what is PRACTICAL, you aren't playing Science Fiction or even Science Fantasy ... you're just playing "Anything Goes!" aboard this ship.

 

[coliver988]

it is a game.

 

[aramis]

As I recall Star Wars had a repulsor assist at the starport.

So did Swycaffer's setting for his novels. See Exonidas Spaceport... Dragon #59, March 1982.
His Concordat setting is directly inspired by CT, and Exonidas Spaceport is a Traveller article using HG2e showing explicitly the links.