[Spaceships] getting into orbit without superscience?

Gnaskar · 08-31-2021, 11:24 AM

Imagine a newly colonized world. They have orbital launch capability in the form of a pair of reusable two stage sea planes, maintained in a prefabricated hanger by the shores of the settlement. In orbit sits their old colony ship (without the propulsion bus, which was sold to another colony expedition). So it's basically empty storage, some stripped down habitation and a hanger bay, but it provides the colony with a basic Class II highport, and allows them to export what ever MacGuffin led them to settling the world in the first place. Lets go with some unusually hard and beautiful timber.

Another group bought rights for a 0.4G world with a 12 hour day, so find they don't need any super materials to bring along a prefabricated space elevator. It's old and worn now, looking fuzzy with frayed wires, but while they were forced to downgrade to lighter elevator cars with less capacity for safety a few years back, it's still plenty to allow for some basic trade.

An asteroid colony is split between the old quarter and the new O'Neill cylinder that lies buried at the asteroid core, with rising tensions between those who can afford gravity and the lower classes who have to do without.

It's not particularly hard to come up with backwater worlds that have minimal infrastructure, but are capable of supporting tramp freight. And, sure, that timber colony probably has a deal with a shipping company to ship out X amount of timber per month. But so what? Even when 99% of the trade is done through long term deals with megacorporations, there's always that last 1%. Maybe the players end up loading the ship full of hand made furniture or some local plants with pharmaceutical properties, while a massive liner sweeps by to load up on all the timber.

08-31-2021, 11:24 AM	#19
Gnaskar Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: [Spaceships] getting into orbit without superscience? Imagine a newly colonized world. They have orbital launch capability in the form of a pair of reusable two stage sea planes, maintained in a prefabricated hanger by the shores of the settlement. In orbit sits their old colony ship (without the propulsion bus, which was sold to another colony expedition). So it's basically empty storage, some stripped down habitation and a hanger bay, but it provides the colony with a basic Class II highport, and allows them to export what ever MacGuffin led them to settling the world in the first place. Lets go with some unusually hard and beautiful timber. Another group bought rights for a 0.4G world with a 12 hour day, so find they don't need any super materials to bring along a prefabricated space elevator. It's old and worn now, looking fuzzy with frayed wires, but while they were forced to downgrade to lighter elevator cars with less capacity for safety a few years back, it's still plenty to allow for some basic trade. An asteroid colony is split between the old quarter and the new O'Neill cylinder that lies buried at the asteroid core, with rising tensions between those who can afford gravity and the lower classes who have to do without. It's not particularly hard to come up with backwater worlds that have minimal infrastructure, but are capable of supporting tramp freight. And, sure, that timber colony probably has a deal with a shipping company to ship out X amount of timber per month. But so what? Even when 99% of the trade is done through long term deals with megacorporations, there's always that last 1%. Maybe the players end up loading the ship full of hand made furniture or some local plants with pharmaceutical properties, while a massive liner sweeps by to load up on all the timber.