In article , derekl1963
@nospamyahoo.com says...
Doug... wrote:
Assuming the Moon/Mars/Beyond initiative actually gets into the hardware
and flying stages, there is an important, basic set of decisions to be
made.

The first of which is, what mode do we use to get back to the Moon?

No, that's the second decision to be made.

The *first* is; What are we planning to do? Long duration stays?
Single location? Multiple locations? Revisits? etc.. etc.. Once that
basic architecture is laid out, one then decides whether it's better
(by whatever criteria, cost, speed, etc..) to use an existing
launcher, or to develop a new launcher, or to improve an existing
launcher.

Apollo jumped straight to the mode decision because the basic decision
had already been forced upon NASA by Kennedy, and the timeline forced
the use of the hardware already largely under study and/or
development. They didn't have the luxury of a blank hardware sheet
and fully developed and coherent plan because there wasn't time.

Well, lessee -- some of the factors that will define the mission have
already been discussed. Things like using lunar resources and building
a permanently manned lunar base have been talked about, I know. And
wouldn't those require landing near the poles and using the water ice
that we think is bound up in the regolith there?

Like I say, I know we have at least *some* of the info we need to start
wrangling this decision. And we're talking about a 10-year program,
right? That's not that much longer than Apollo had.

Doug