Mass Drivers in Discovery?

[Fletcher]

My questions is this, would a Mass Driver Space Launch facility ever exist in this (Discovery) universe?

I think it would work, but the ships would need to be modified to use it, perhaps.

So using what is essentially a very long Maglev/Mass Driver system to launch a ship into space from a planet surface. Plausible?

Mass Driver Wiki

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[Marcus Lindberg]

• Docking rings are perhaps cheaper in terms of RP.
  
• Agiera and/or another company would have to put in research into mass drivers to launch spacecraft.
  
• Docking rings are considered 'smooth elevators', would mass drivers be the same?
  
• Besides, you'd have to dock your ship to the mass driver, AND THEN launch to space, again, in terms of RP.
  

[Tenacity]

I'm not so sure about launching a ship from the surface into space with this, but perhaps as a form of high speed, long range travel without the use of jumpholes or jump gates. The problem with your scenario is that the ship would end up moving out of the atmosphere at a high enough speed to be disintegrated by the friction against the atmosphere itself.

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[Marcus Lindberg]

I'm not so sure about launching a ship from the surface into space with this, but perhaps as a form of high speed, long range travel without the use of jumpholes or jump gates. The problem with your scenario is that the ship would end up moving out of the atmosphere at a high enough speed to be disintegrated by the friction against the atmosphere itself.

I'd just like to remind you that freelancer uses arcade physics, not realistic physics like in Freespace. Therefore I don't really think that would be a problem actually.

[Sprolf]

I always imagined that Tradelanes were a variation of this technology.

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[Fletcher]

To me, I can see mass drives in planets with a thin to no atmosphere, like a moon or a small inhabitable planet.

One way I can see medium sized ships using this tech, is a modified claw/tray or tram that runs along the track and breaks off at the end, then perhaps in an atmosphere environment, the ships engines kick in full blast.

When it comes to friction, modified shields to minimize the atmosphere?

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[Sprolf]

When it comes to friction...

Actually, the docking ring infocard has something along those lines.

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[darthbeck]

the acceleration would kill any organics.

not to mention that fact that with advanced fusion engines, it is easier to use fusion drives for leaving planets.

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[Fletcher]

the acceleration would kill any organics.

not to mention that fact that with advanced fusion engines, it is easier to use fusion drives for leaving planets.

Inertial dampers and G-Suits, think about how we are in space flight now, faster than a bullet isn't it?

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[Dashiell]

2 words: Super R-Type

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