Friday, July 1, 2022

The 393-tonne Mars ship

As apparently my custom, I didn't post anything on the last day of the month... which, for June, was Tunguska-Day. Welcome to July; so under the rockets' red glare let's talk Von Braun's Dream (pdf) of assembling interplanetary craft in orbit. NETS 2021; @AerojetRdyne (pdf).

ToughSF don' like it: This Mars ship is assembled by 11 launches. 9 are performed by privately flown launchers, but 2 are sized specifically so they won't fit on Starship so SLS has something to do. Although: this blog has long argued for one-way high-load cargo. We simply need to include the empty propellant-chassis as cargo (living space, yo!). I concede that Starship is king for cheap delivery of midsized cargo.

The commenters are asking how come no aerocapture. Maybe if Mars had the aero to do the capture . . .

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