From: spamhere@dev.null.retro.com   
      
   "Rocky"  writes:   
      
   > If Bushes moon base talk is for real we are going to need somthing   
   > a lot bigger than a sat 5 ...   
      
   Not at all.   
      
   There is no point in doing Apollo style one-shot missions.  It   
   would be far better to build an infrastructure which supports   
   continued access to the moon and deep space.   
      
   I think vehicle assembly and/or refueling in LEO will be an   
   indispensable component of such missions.  In particular, I speculate   
   that a reusable earth-moon transfer vehicle will be built, and there   
   may or may not be a separate Moon descent/ascent vehicle.   
      
   Components and fuel for the transfer vehicles could be launched on   
   existing, 20t to LEO launchers.  This would require a significant   
   number of launches, so we should see an economy of scale kick in.   
   Aircraft-style assembly lines could be established to churn out a few   
   launch vehicles per month.  Such an approach ought to be much more   
   economical than going for a small number of very heavy lift launches   
   using a non-existent vehicle.   
      
   --   
   Manfred Bartz   
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------   
   Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing   
   it and then misapplying the wrong remedies.           -- Groucho Marx   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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