If nothing else, Cronkite would have to agree that we should at least
go back to LL-1.

A viable parking orbit (aka station-keeping platform/tank-farm) of a
massive fuel depot in the sky, of which LL-1 could easily be
accommodating those sorts of volumes and of whatever mass as offering
an unlimited solution isn't or at least it shouldn't hardly be rocket
science. At least not by now, especially in that so many satellite
deployments (including those of our Apollo fiasco) have more than
proven their translunar capability.

LL-1 is not technically of what's nearly as taboo/nondisclosure as
you'd think, although the naysay likes of William Mook should
continually disagree just out of spite. In spite of all the Usenet
and/or other naysay flak, it's not even all that far away nor without
benefit of the lunar gravity itself. Actually taking advantage of the
moon/sun alignment is one better yet, and of those deployments taking
the full lunar cycle of 29.5 days of getting whatever tonnage
transferred away from Earth and efficiently arriving into the LL-1
sweet-spot isn't a robotic DNA problem that I know of.

Since retrothrust reserves of rocket fuel isn't a significant
requirement for getting the vast bulk of substantial components and
fuel tonnage into that zone (merely reaction thrusters should more than
do the trick), and the interactive gravity-well and of tidal forces
should otherwise work in our favor. Therefore, where exactly is the
supposed insurmountable or dumbfounded problem?

As long as we don't have to deal with banking the likes of robotic bone
marrow, and since the LL-1 zone is supposedly a good 60,000 km away
from our reactive and therefore extremely nasty moon by day (by way of
earthshine being as little as 0.1% as nasty and therefore humanly
survivable), is why the LL-1 zone is so nicely space-depot
accommodating. There's also the very least amount of local plus solar
wind medium to deal with, and it's even somewhat shielded by way of the
lunar gravity extended magnetosphere of mother Earth.

As for Earth-science and moon-science and just plain old
astronomy/astrophysics science on steroids, there's none better than
LL-1. I think it's even humanly safer and most certainly it's far more
accessible and thereby end-user friendly than being entirely exposed
and out-of sight via LL-2.

Even Walter Cronkite should fully support the notions that short
duration transits of getting crew safely from Earth to LL-1 should be
doable within 24 hours, although requiring a fair amount of SRM or LRB
retrothrust. A gravity free fall back to mother Earth seems rather
energy efficient, as well as deploying whatever into lunar orbit should
no longer be nearly as complicated as it is. Even the notions of
deploying nukes from LL-1 isn't insurmountable, although from a
tethered deployed platform that can be efficiently sustained at 50,000
km away from Earth (25,000 km if you'd dare) might seriously improve
the odds of our nukes taking out whatever cash of their nukes before
they ever get launched in the first place.
-
Brad Guth

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm