"MattWriter" wrote:
Are there any serious proposals in work now for a very-heavy-lift (Saturn
class) booster? Potential uses might include the space-based laser, getting
future nuclear-powered missions off Earth, tourist hotels built as one units,
etc. Is there enough of a market that anyone is seriously pursuing this?

The only concepts on the table with any possibility of being
developed in the near term are Shuttle derived HLVs, and even
those have essentially zero chance of being developed. There
may be HLVs developed in the near future but there's very
little market for them at the moment. There's plenty of
ability to build such a vehicle should the need arise, but it
would basically take someone announcing "I have several 100
tonne payloads I need in orbit and I have a few billion
dollars, would someone be so kind as to help me out?"