[Spaceships] getting into orbit without superscience?

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

GURPS clearly defines what it means by superscience, and it marks all equipment as to whether it is considered superscience or not.

"'Superscience' technologies violate physical laws... as we currently understand them" (page B513).

Superscience equipment has a "^" for its TL or, if the writer decides that it appears at a certain TL, the "^" appears after the TL number.

So the original question can be restated as: what is the most efficient way to get from the surface to orbit using only equipment that doesn't have a "^" on its TL? (And there is an implicit "also not magical" in there.)

I did not realize this but I did wonder about the ^ on some items.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I did not realize this but I did wonder about the ^ on some items.

It could be noted that superscience ranges from "It's magic, don't question it" to "The math works out but we don't pretend to know how it works" to "Completely realistic except for the part where it doesn't instantly melt itself at this sort of energy density."