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Planetary Transportation

There are many ways to get around on a planet, after all, people have been doing it as long as there have been people. If you find yourself needing to traverse a long distace from one point on the surface to another, here is how you might go about it.  

Land Travel

On land, the best way to get around is a maglev. They are quick, efficient and very comfortable. They have a downside, however, which is that they require a lot of infrastructure, most importantly of course their tracks. For this reason, they are mostly found on Earth, where transportation infrastructure had a long time to grow. Where no tracks are in place, travellers might have to resign to use some wheeled vehicle. Typically this is a rover, i.e. a vehicle with off-road capabilities and life support systems for use in places without atmosphere.  

Air Travel

When travelling intercontinental distances, especially across oceans, air travel is most convenient. On Earth, this mostly takes the form of air liners, which need large runways to take of and land. Once again, this necessitates a large amount of infrastructure, which is why a different technological route was taken in Alpha Centauri, where all infrastructure had to be developed from the ground up.   On Kent Prime especially, most long distace transport is done with ekranoplans. These vehicles utilize the ground effect to efficiently fly low above the water surface. As they take off and touch down on water, little infrastructure is needed besides some piers for them to land at.   For flying over land, autogyros are used. These aircraft, can take off and land on short distances or even vertically, which makes it easy to establish landing locations. They typically have large wheels, which make it so landing sites don't even need to have tarmac. Since it is less effort to build two landing pads than a road, most travel between settlements is actually done through the air on the planets of Alpha Centauri.  

Suborbital Travel

On bodies without a sufficiently dense atmosphere, air travel is of course not an option, and rovers aren't fast enough for intercontinental distances. Instead, suborbital hoppers may be used. These are essentially small rockets, which are not powerful enough to reach orbit. Instead, they travel on a ballistic trajectory and then land at the target location. They are in fact the fastest mode of transport, but very uncomfortable and thus not used where it can be avoided.

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Cover image: by nearlyoctagonal

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