Ions are great once you're up in space, provided time isn't a factor. Unfortunately without investing in launch loops, or space elevators, or orbital rings, or rotavators, or other such technologies, getting out of Earth's gravity well is the really expensive part that will still require liquid-fueled rockets. But I hard agree: we should be investing in getting out into space (rather than blowing each other up.)

We fight over land and territory. Solution: make it easy to just leave. Go make your own territory. Space provides that opportunity. The problem: then the people that do become ungovernable. They might go out into the black and do fully-automated luxury gay space communism. And we can't have that.

The Culture Intensifies