"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
news
"Jeff Findley" wrote:

:
:"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
hdakotatelephone...
:
:
: Jeff Findley wrote:
: But even better would be to have NASA invest in developing in orbit
: refueling technologies so that launch vehicle size is no longer a huge
: constraint to launching a lunar mission. In orbit refueling would be
a
: paradigm changing technology.
:
: And whom, pray tell, is going to take the fuel up to the orbiting fuel
: depot?
: Shouldn't that be privately done also?
:
:Nope. You invite participating countries to launch fuel in exchange for
:seats on lunar missions. You get *them* to pay for the launch vehicles,
so
:the US doesn't have to.
:

It'd be cheaper to just launch the fuel ourselves.

I don't understand how getting another country to launch fuel costs the US
more money than launching it ourselves. Unless you assume NASA gets a big,
cheap, launch vehicle out of nowhere.

:This keeps participating countries off the "critical path" and it gives
the
:US a key spacefairing technology which will enable bigger missions which
can
:travel further from Earth. By far the biggest part of a Mars mission
(mass
:wise) will be fuel. Getting other countries to foot the bill for
launching
:that is a good thing. Set the precedent now rather than later.
:

This is still a 'chicken and egg' thing. If you don't have a use for
the stuff it's a waste. If you *do* have use for the stuff, then it's
one somebody's critical path for whatever missions intend to use it.

If the plug gets pulled on Ares development and NASA is told that they're
out of the launch vehicle business for good, then the need for LEO refueling
becomes far greater.

The way the politics are working out, I personally doubt NASA will get the
funding it wants for Ares V (or any big SDLV). NASA will be forced to "do
more with less".

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon