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by Zigurd
748 days ago
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Anything beyond Earth orbit requires either multi-stage expendable rockets, which isn't economical for supporting a moon base, or in-orbit refueling that has better economics than expendable rockets, which depends on cheap rapid reusability. If you can't land, refuel, and fly without refurbishing the launch system, rocket engines, etc. you can't ship fuel to orbit cheaply enough to justify in-orbit refueling. Starship is a vastly better attempt at more of these goals than STS. But if it misses cost, or payload, or reliability goals it won't solve this problem. It is even possible that it will take too many attempts in which a ship and 39 engines are expended to even get close. |
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