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Setting aside Mars for the moment, how does one make ANYTHING in space economical?
Satellites already are economically valuable. Built from there.
Make them cheaper to launch and maintain, and more will be used.
I think the next step up is a solar powered space tug / robot. It can re-boost satellites, and transport supplies (coolant, fuel, etc) from whatever orbit is least expensive to launch into out to rendezvous with any satellite. It can also deliver satellites from LEO to GEO.
Once they're up there, new satellites will be designed to make good use of them - i.e. they'll become dependent upon them, and as a result be cheaper. Likely they'll be designed more and more to allow the robot to service them - replacing malfunctioning modules.
The next step beyond that might be to optimize use of the robots' time - establishing a supply depot in high orbit, where supplies can be delivered in advance of need, using whatever launch strategy works best - probably launching large quantities of commonly needed supplies to LEO, and letting the tug-bot slowly haul it up. This will enable faster service to satellites on demand - but will probably require another tug-bot so one can be ready to dispatch while the other is towing supplies to the depot.
This will make GEOsynch satellites substantially cheaper, allowing increased use of those - and needing more tugs because it'll take quite a while to cycle up from LEO to GEO.
The depot and tugs will make other robotic missions more economical. Many of these will be science craft, but a few may do things like investigate asteroid mining.
Note that I haven't mentioned humans going into space. Frankly that isn't economical yet. But we'll be sending some out anyhow, for exploration and national prestige, and the supply depot could be quite useful for them as well. I'd guess that using the tug to deliver 90% of the mass for a lunar mission from LEO to GEO would cut human mission costs by as much as 2/3rds.
Mars? Well, if we're going anyhow, the space tug and depot will help keep costs down. We've got a LONG way to build out into space before it become economical to go there, but getting costs down is a helpful step.
I think it's worth thinking about the shape of this thing. There are several "mysteries" - why the V shape, why such skinny wings, why make it so huge?
Obviously they're not just aiming for maximum bouyancy - a zeppelin or sphere shape would be best for that.
It's not just drag - a zeppellin shape is more nearly ideal for that.
It's not just dynamic lift - a delta wing shape could give the same lift area with much more volume, hence better bouyancy.
My conjecture is that they need lots of linear length to array their means of thrust - i.e. longer, skinnier wings equals more thrust for a given amount of lift surface and drag. Hence the V shape.
Also, I'd guess that the depth (front to back) of the wings is dictated by their means of propulsion. This makes me suspect that it is some sort of ionic wind system, as some here have mentioned previously. Since that relies on charge separation, there's probably some ideal distance that gets good ionic acceleration per mass of wing cross section - too small and you don't get enough thrust nor enough interior volume for good bouyancy; too large and thrust increases far slower than mass.
They probably also need a lot of fuel to power their ionic engines, which dictates a certain volume of lift cells - which is why it's so huge. And given that the ideal wing cross section was fixed by the above factors, they had to make them longer to get more volume, so they'd have enough excess lift capacity to carry a decent mass of cargo above their fuel requirements.
This craft isn't going to go beyond low earth orbit - an alternative means of propulsion is required beyond that, namely a rocket - and this ship is not structured for rocket propulsion. So they'll either need to carry a rocket vehicle for missions beyond LEO, or meet up with a space tug of some sort. Probably they're aiming to have enough capacity to carry up a space tug in one mission, and fuel and cargo for it in each subsequent mission.
It seems like they could also make these things nuclear powered, but the massive shielding required for a manned craft would still make for a big craft.
BTW - if you've seen the movie Riddick, you may have been struck by the thought that those big floating/flying ships might be designed along these lines...