I wonder what would be the technical challenges of a railgun powered rocket/capsule to launch small payloads to space, technically the remaining concern would be the G force from the acceleration.
The railgun "solution" occurred to me too. Is the rail degradation a failure of materials science? Or are the materials that would be required for this so theoretical at this point to be science fiction rather than science?
There's nothing fundamentally impossible AFAIK - i.e. the rail itself doesn't have to do anything it can't, but you need the surface to survive enough shots to make it worthwhile.
For an actual weapon, this is potentially worth it at a pretty low number since the weapon itself will be pretty small. For a rocket accelerator sled this is going to be more of a problem (but like, conversely you could consider ideas like re-surfacing the rails in place since your turn around isn't fast).
