Fred J. McCall wrote:
Brian Thorn wrote:

:On 23 Oct 2005 03:56:21 -0700, "Alex Terrell"
:wrote:
:
:But how can you get a descent lunar lander, capable of landing ~10 tons
:on the lunar surface, into the 5.2m dimater faring offered by SpaceX
:(or Boeing, LM, or the Stick)?
:
:Can this be done without orbital assembley?
:
:Maybe, but the simplest solution would be to launch the lander without
:any fuel tanks first, and then attach fuel tanks (launched seperately
r uninstalled on the same launcher.) in orbit. That would take some
:ISS-like assembly, though.

And you're back to talking about assembly of pressure fittings in
space. This is almost always a bad idea, particularly for relatively
high pressure fittings like fuel feed lines.

Space assembly is HARD, people. It's difficult and clumsy work.

There's assembley and there's assembley. I was hoping to keep itdown to
rendez-vous and attachment, as proposed by NASA. However, for this at
least one of the modules needs thrust.

As for high pressure feedlines, I assume they're only high pressure
when the valve is turned on. And even if their valveless, joiming high
pressure feed lines in space should be relatviely straight forward, as
long as they align correctly.