[Space] Steampunk Firefly Idea

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Really? I'm surprised at this. It's been my impression that if, e.g., Earth's gravity had been just 5% lower, getting up into orbit would have been much easier. Still requiring a 3-stage rocket, probably, but much cheaper, and with much less of having to stretch TL7 engineering to its absolute limits.

Following the formula, escape velocity goes with the square root of the gravity "g", so halving the gravity would give 0.7 of the escape velocity. Note though that distance from the centre of mass "r" is also a factor, so a smaller moon would have a lower escape velocity than just the difference in gravity would indicate.