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Old October 2nd 19, 12:32 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Posts: 2,307
Default NASA wants to send nuclear rockets to the Moon and Mars

In article ,
says...

Note that Elon Musk wants to do similar missions with space-to-space refueling.
Which approach is better?



SpaceX's plan for in-orbit Starship refueling: a second Starship:

https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/28/...ueling-spacex/

NASA is still looking for their "silver bullet" instead of focusing on
the real challenge, which is cost per kg to LEO.

Putting an expensive nuclear rocket powered upper stage on top of SLS
(at $1 billion per launch) is an economic absurdity.

Starship/Super Booster will be cheap because it's cheap to make and it's
fully reusable. SLS is neither of those, even with a nuclear upper
stage.

Jeff
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