Now, Catapult Drive is different all together. There’s no complicated multi-dimensional physics involved. In fact, most children have a good grasp on the principles.
Catapult Drive is the mainstay of inter-planetary travel within a star system. Though it’s limited to speeds just short of the Speed of Light (approximately 100,000 meters per second slower), it travels a standard Astronomical Unit (149,598,000,000 meters) in an even 500 seconds.
From an engineering point the process is difficult to prepare, but its execution is simple. First, the largest capacitors ever conceived are charged was mind boggling amounts of electricity. Even modern day fusion reactors take a few hours to fully charge them. Once the capacitor is full, half of its energy is dumped within one pico-second into the Drive. Acceleration to maximum speed is near instantaneous. Then its a simple matter of turning the ship 180 degrees and dumping the second half of the capacitor into the Drive when the final destination is reached to stop.