Could an advanced species, having evolved on a large planet with a deep gravity well, be helped out of it from above?

Suppose an intelligent species evolved on a large rocky planet, one with sufficient mass that the species had little hope of developing anything anytime soon that could achieve escape velocity. They're stuck in a deep gravity well. Whereas we've been able to use rockets to exceed Earth's escape velocity and achieve orbit and beyond, the best efforts of this poor species would never even get close. Whatever space program they might try to develop ends in frustration and despair. They don't even have satellites.

If another interstellar species found them, miserably stewing down on their world's surface, would there be anything in hard-to-medium sci-fi physics that could be done for them that they couldn't do for themselves? They could send ships down, but they'd never make the climb back up. Could a space elevator be constructed in orbit by the spacefaring species and fed down, like throwing a rope down a well? Or something else? I'm deliberately excluding things like teleporters, for obvious reasons...

posted almost 9 years ago

Doug‭

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