Except for the little matter of acceleration and what it does to the delicate payload (e.g., astronauts). Anything but pig iron is probably too fragile to launch. That and Congressmen.
--Boris
Let me bring you up to speed as to EMSL. This is the freight train to space, no flesh is accelerated up to 100,000 g's, only solids/liquids are in the projectiles(minimum size = 10 kg). Most of the payload is cryogenically frozen WATER : H2O for drinking, washing, steam engines, H2+O2 hydrolysis, ice blocks for solar flare protection, hydroponics, etc. We had it all worked out. With a system efficiency in the range of 10%($4/#)to 1%($40/#)you put up hundreds of shuttle loads in LEO/year at a tiny fraction of the cost of the lumbering 3g rocket.....But sadly, NASA rocket scientists didn't want to be shown up as rocket scientist IDIOTS, and Reagan's Star Wars/evil empire strategy worked, the USSR collapsed, and thus no need for the expense of SDI. Thus the EMSL concept died and now CHINA is taking the lead in space development. Sigh, it always takes a swift knee to the crotch to wake america up(sputnik)(911)( ).....doesn't it?