*From:* "Jon S. Berndt"
*Date:* Thu, 06 Apr 2006 06:25:46 -0400

Don't know if this has been discussed before, but I noticed some time
ago that the LSAM will be discarded after it performs its duties.
What are some thoughts on a less wasteful approach:

1) An LSAM that travels between lunar orbit and lunar surface in one
piece (reusable),
2) A CEV that goes from ground-to-earth-orbit-and-back ONLY (crew
taxi),
3) An Earth/Moon transfer vehicle that ONLY goes between earth orbit
and lunar orbit (reusable; stationed at ISS),
4) A fuel/cargo/resupply transfer vehicle that takes stuff anywhere.

Maybe this is too complicated, but it seems wasteful to me to throw
away one LSAM for each access to the lunar surface.

Jon

I think an expendable LSAM saves cash!

A reusable one would need a complicated restartable rethrottleable
descent / ascent stage engine, whereas the ones planned for the separate
ascent and descent stages are very simple and robust, hence cheap.

That's why I was a bit surprised that the cargo booster will use SSMEs -
that too is a very complicated and expensive design for an expendable
booster.