To clarify: Fighters are too small to carry jump-engines, and atmospheric shuttles need to be aerodynamic which precludes the use of stablisers. Engineers are trying to find ways of building FTL stabilisers into a shuttle's frame, making a vessel which can land on a planet and travel faster than light, but nothing practical has been developed so far. All surface-to-space transit involves large orbital stations, generally called "exchanges", where atmospheric and FTL ships meet to transfer goods. Exchanges are the linchpins of the economy.
Sorry about the slightly late (ie: less than 2 hours) today. I made plans to meet someone at college at 1pm to quickly record some dialogue for a short-film we're putting together as our final assessment. Sadly he didn't arrive until 3:30pm, so I didn't make it home in time to upload. |