Given the upcoming government built gateways, it got me thinking about other kinds of things governments could capitalize on. Mass drivers!
The concept being that the mass driver is built on-planet and can shoot materials from your planet to any other, for a fee. If we have FTL ships, I figure that mass driver technology could be viable. If launching materials straight from the planet surface is too much, how about attaching it to a space elevator? When the space elevator infrastructure gets implemented, then a mass driver could just be attached to the top. Materials go up the elevator and are launched to any planet in-system. Perhaps there could be a mass driver package commodity that can can hold 10t/10m3?
How about the ability for a government to build and maintain this sort of mass driver infrastructure?
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I think mass drivers would be fun too. It would be interesting to see the cost to construct them depend on atmospheric density and planetary gravity. I think it would add interesting choices pertaining to planetary characteristics beyond whether a base is expensive to build or not.
Should the payload require some sort of casing, contributing a cost-per-use? Maybe that would be more conveniently included as an upkeep item, which the operator might recoup through a use fee.
Should the receiving end require additional infrastructure to decelerate the payload? I want to say that was the way mass drivers were presented in Alien Legacy. I can’t remember whether you could accidentally nuke your receiving colony if you allowed the mass driver at the destination to go offline, but I have that idea for some reason.