Upscaling towards Saturn V performance?

"Tkalbfus1" wrote in message
...
They did it last time because they were in a big hurry to do a minimal
landing mission. This time, there is no rush and (officially, at least)
a
longer-term view of the objectives. The more relaxed schedule and eye on
later missions will encourage building infrastructure (e.g., orbital
assembly facilities) as appropriate, and the emphasis on long-term lunar
surface activity will encourage even the first missions to use heavier
spacecraft with larger crews and much longer surface stays. The sensible
choice now is orbital assembly.


Do they plan on finding the cure for old age in the meantime? They
shouldn't be
planning missions for immortals. If it takes longer than your expected
lifetime
to complete the mission, the mission might as well never happen as far as
your
concerned.

They can spend the next 50 years saying, "Not yet! Not yet! We're still
not
ready!" and never get it done.

We could also spend the next 50 years trying to get Congress to fund another
expendable HLLV. It's already been over 30 years since the last Apollo
flight left the Moon, and it hasn't happened yet. NASA had grandiose plans
for using the Saturn-V for large permanent space stations in LEO, Moon
bases, and even Mars flights, but virtually none of it happened. The only
part that happened was one Skylab. When Bush Sr. proposed the SEI for going
back to the Moon and on to Mars with an expendable HLLV it got shot down
before it even got off the ground. The current president's Moon/Mars plan
is little more than a plan to start talking about it again, with few details
and even less money. When they start asking for serious money for new
starts, I don't expect it to get any farther than SEI, if the plan is based
on using expendable HLLV's for logistics.

Tom