help with a book.

Will the jet (beam?) of ions have enough time to interact with the air before the pod catches up, at 6 miles per second? There's also the need to put mass on the pod for the ion jet. It might work better to have a laser fired through the atmosphere just before launch, at a frequency that's relatively well absorbed by air. Or a disposable pod could be launched ahead of each real one: as the dummy pod burns up, it ionizes the air. Finally, note that these things are often proposed for mountaintops to minimize the amount of air they have to go through.