10,000 TONS into orbit in one shot, most of it payload. Braking would be equally effective. $250/lb to orbit.

Does it make any sense to even think of reviving the nuclear-pulse concept? Economically the answer is yes. Pedersen (55) says that 10,000-ton spaceships with 10,000-ton payloads are feasible. Spaceships like this could be relatively cheap compared to Shuttle-like vehicles due to their heavyweight construction. One tends to think of shipyards with heavy plates being lowered into place by cranes. How much would the pulse units cost? Pedersen gives the amazingly low figure of $10,000 to $40,000 per unit for the early Martin design (56); there is reason to think that $1 million is an upper limit (57). Primarily from strength of materials considerations, Dyson (58) argues that 30 meters/second (about 100 feet/second) is the maximum velocity increment that could be obtained from a single pulse. Given that low-altitude orbital velocity is about 26,000 feet/second, around 350 pulses would be required (59). Using $500,000 as a reasonable pulse-unit cost, this implies a "fuel cost" of $175 million, cheaper than a Shuttle launch. Whereas the Shuttle might carry thirty tons of payload, the pulse vehicle would carry thousands. If one uses the extreme example of spending $5 billion to build a vehicle to lift 10,000 tons (or 20 million pounds) to orbit, the cost if spread over a single flight is $250 per pound, far cheaper than the accepted figure of $5,000 to $6,000 per pound for a Shuttle flight.