On Mar 10, 1:22�am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
giveitawhirl2008 wrote:

:I guess it's really a dumb question, considering the history of
:energia:
:
:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia
:
:But the thought has croseed my mind: if a deep-pockets entity built a
:lifter that could put up 200,000 lbs, or greater, might not someone
:decide, 'hey, we could build a space station to lauch on that thing,'
r 'hey, we could use that to send up and assemble moonships or
:Marsships [or such]?"
:
:With the heavy lifter already developed and available at some
articular price per lauch, then someone ELSE could concentate on
:applications: space stations for tourists, interplanetary craft, etc.
:

It's not enough. �If you're talking manned interplanetary ships, you
need something with more boost than that. �About twice that, in fact.
See the Mars Reference Mission, for example, where you need to be able
to boost 220 ton payloads.

You can't even uprate an Energia to get enough lift for those kinds of
missions. �You either need something completely new or you're back to
trying to come up with uprated Saturn V lifters.

Your premise is based on the 'if it exists they will come' paradigm,
which I'm not sure is true. �There isn't enough demand for launches by
vehicles in this class to get launch rates up to the point where costs
drop.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
� � � � � � � � � � � � � �-- Charles Pinckney

low cost heavy lift vehicle could significantly decrease payload cost.

build large easy to build easy to service station as a example.

rather than spending billions making it small and lightweight, and
crammed in too small.

go large spacious and easy to service no in orbit equiping needed

If we still had the saturn 5 or by now the upgraded saturn 10 ISS
could of been built faster better cheaper