"The mass launcher... that's the idea."
Zhong Cheng automatically ignored the previous term; the space elevator was still too far off, likely unreachable within ten years.
However, the mass launcher was different. The technology of a mass launcher based on superconducting electromagnetic acceleration tracks was not complicated, especially considering there already was a lunar mass launcher construction plan on paper by United Mining.
The greatest difficulty in using electromagnetic acceleration tracks to launch ore into space was not the technology, but rather the scale of construction and cost.
Aside from rocket and aero-space plane technologies, this was the most viable cheap transport method humanity was likely to achieve first.
Lin Ju: "The problem is that it's too limited. On Earth, cheap methods will still have to wait for the space elevator; other transport capabilities are too small, with very strict requirements on size and weight."
