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Because Mars requires months as opposed to mere days for Luna.  Also the Moon has industrial and manufacturing potential directly applicable to CisLunar space (cough cough Earth satellites with marketing potential).  But in short if something screws up in the short term handling it on a Lunar mission will be a hell of alot easier; remember Buzz and Aldrin DID get their experience not just on simulators but also on Gemini missions as well.

I'm talking about something along the lines of an independent manufacturing plant.  Your line of argument would be like the British back in the 1500s saying "Oh it will never be cheaper to construct ships in the Americas..."

In short term, you're right - long term wrong.

So helium-3 is the one for-sure item that could be imported to Earth.

Otherwise our answer is making a self-sustaining lunar colony.  Once fully operational it'd make a market of manufacturing satellites and spacecraft and that in turn would lull more people into space.

Well if there's a modification that can benefit the system do it, but if it adds a burden go with whatever STS gives.  Keep the best balance that minimizes cost without jeapordizing safety...which itself is not easy.

What about the EDS?  Will it be anything like the upper stage on the Ares I or will it be considerably larger?

Those same pioneers never dealt with the headaches of liquid hydrogen and the wonderful world of cryogenics that prevails.

Solid rockets are more reliable than liquids for better or worse.  Liquids can give better performance but it comes at an annoying cost: cryogenics that limit storage time (which has HUGE implications both within and certainly beyond CisLunar space) and demand thick insulation (which in the case of STS shed and lead to deaths) and complex engines (that are heavy and impractical like the SSME or have to be imported from Russia like Lockheed has done with many engines).  You fill a solid rocket up like you fill a tube of cauking, slap it together, and then light up.

The SRBs never once caused a flight delay nor failed in performance whereas your precious liquid SSME are often the contrairy; hell even the ET was PECKED into a launch abort by a woodpecker because of the insulation!  Liquid rocketry...defeated by a bird!!

Good lord  :shock:   You people are designing the USS Monstrosity.

The Ares VII, compared to the insane design of Paris, is a HELL of alot more doable.  Have you people even taken into account the transport vehicle?  No way in hell anything could move something of that scale and I doubt assembling it on the launch pad will be anywhere near simple.  Although I suppose either Ares VII or X are possible to at least design if not implement and fabricate, but I wonder how an even simpiler design could perform.

Call this conept the Ares VI:

-Same central core and upper-stage as Ares V
-4 5-stage SRVs; same as on Ares V but two more (1 more than Ares VII)

What would the performance of this conceptual vehicle be compared to Ares V and then to Ares VII?  4 SRBs versus 3 allow for something more symmetrical which I assume is easier to handle and maintain.  Are there any US boosters that use 3 rockets like that?  Only one I can think of is the Atlas V.

Summarizing I think it'd be easier to implement than Ares X and slightly less troublesome than Ares VII - more hardware heritage from Ares V and more stable on the launch pad.  If it lifts a good 5 tons more than Ares V for just a hundred million of development verses several billion for 15 tons or whatever I'd take the former since it saves more.

I don't think colonizing the ocean, despite its vast space, would be particularly wise.

It is the biggest, most interconnected, and least-studied enviorment on the planet.  Consider where we live now, on continients and even cities on the fringes of desserts can contribute runoff that already off-balances lord knows what in terra aqua.

...and you're talking about floating cities of a few thousand easy directly out there?  Think of the phrase "poop deck" and conceptulaize how the sewer system would work.  Then add in oil leakage, garbage, paper wrappers wafting in the breeze and six-pack-rings floating toward breeding grounds of otters and endangered sea birds.  The urge to dump all our waste into something seemingly vast would be too easy and powerful for an ocean city.  Within fifty years given a few dozen floating New New Yorks and New Londons you'll have the Ocean Thames reaking of dead fish.

Don't count on harvesting the Ocean either - it is NOT as fruitful as people think.  Areas the size of the United States are already being swept to the ocean bedrock every year; the ocean's equivellant of the Amazon's hack-and-slash burnings.

May as well suggest Antarctica - fresh penguin eggs and meat waiting to turn giant colonies of those cute lil butlers into colonies of the next dodo bird. (cue the screams of a thousand 'March of the Penguin' and 'Happy Feet' fans imaging penguins getting clubbed like baby seals). And with the ice thawing and sun half the year oooh...sun worshippers and resorts.

An even better idea.  No restraints by an aeroshell/heatshield and no need to deflate for storage...save perhaps inspection if long-term but even then inflated may prove better.

Um...what the...?

Based purely on apperance I must frankly say it looks like a bastard son of Soyuz.

I don't think Orion could be refitted like that, but once Bigelow's modules are proven with human occupants it wouldn't be a bad idea to save space and, somewhat fittingly, make space more comfortable.  It is certainly a good idea for space tourists and whatever spacecraft that picks up from CEVs legacy.

I agree.  Even if its not used on Orion or LSAM it has applications - hell in the farther future a distant cousin of this engine might be finding Titan to be a paradise in methane.

Its great we've got a potential Martian engine that runs.  Now we need Martian propellant production to get both the horse and carriage.

I'd rather have a crappy Moonbase than the ISS anyday.  Unlike Skylab (and eventually ISS) the base'd stay there instead of burning up after a useless lifetime.

NASA can't conjur up miracles and neither can commerical space programs; both take time to develop and, more likely, a solid need needs to smack the public square in the face.

I agree on the Lunar Resources focus: that's where the Moon has weight versus the ISS, you have something to study and work with.

9 men stuck inside a tin can, even if they are experts at telerobotics, sounds like a huge waste of money and effort, especially if it costs $9 billion a person (taking into account equiptment, launching, and development over a few years) to get them there.  If you want telerobotics I think 6 is the maximum we need at Mars...

Once we get to operating a base long-term, yeah, 9 or better still 20+ is good because we'll have a facility, setup on an alien and demanding surface, that NEEDS that kind of attention.