[RadioAstronomer]

Try mass driving JPL, or Boeing, or Northrop into space - it doesn't work.

You lost me here.

[XBob]

165 - "Try mass driving JPL, or Boeing, or Northrop into space - it doesn't work.
You lost me here."

Mass driving an ingot into space or orbit is a relatively accomplishable technological feat, even today. Just doing it, could be done.

Turning that ingot into a space station or a space ship or whatever is the hard part - and you can't mass drive all the companies, people and technology and support into space.

So, while mass drive is a nice pipe dream for space travel, what do you accomplish by putting an ingot into space?

[XBob]

To make space commercially feasible, we need the space going version of these:

[XBob]

And you can't shoot them into space with a mass driver, nor can you build them in space with a mass driver, nor can you really economically effectively chemically propel them into space (except for the first one).

So, IMO, mass drivers lead no where, except to drive refined ingots of ore into space, (and we already have ore here on earth).