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Never attempted? No, done many times: ISS assembly and resupply. And the commercial satellite rendezvous and refueling market will probably be well on its way b

Never attempted? No, done many times: ISS assembly and resupply. And the commercial satellite rendezvous and refueling market will probably be well on its way by 2020. p.s. I'm confused by your mention of ULA vs Falcon reliability -- given that I didn't mention either! Did you read something into my comment?

dogma1138 10y ago
The ISS was assembled when we had the shuttle, we never had reassembly and relaunch in orbit. Commercial satellite refueling market won't be viable by 2020, we might have a handful of attempts. And I didn't read anything into your comment since there isn't much beyond ULA (Delta, Atlas) and Falcon to launch the damn thing to begin with. And I'm sorry that I don't want to bet on technology that isn't there yet in any shape and form to start planning for a mission that is supposed to launch in 7-8 years with a limited launch window and a failure that would set you back a decade + and not insurance payout + 18 months like if it was a commercial launch to LEO. And again you are missing the point we need big rockets it's not even a question, and SLS is the only big rocket anyone is currently building, if Space X comes up with a Falcon Heavy Plus capable of competing against the SLS on both payload mass and reliability there would be a room to talk. We need NASA, and the US need cross state national projects because they are industry incubators, yes they are inefficient at times but you get plenty for them. If going to Europa also means that the US is back at building Saturn V class rockets it's a huge plus regardless the costs.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Oh, so the modules launched by the Russians, and all of the supply vehicles, somehow don't count? I'm afraid that you're coming at this argument with a very different and impossible-to-understand worldview.
- jacoblambda 10y ago
  Depending on the design, the craft could be assembled at off one of the docks for the ISS. Assembly would be little different than the actual construction of the ISS and could be launched with cheaper and less bureaucratically constricted launch systems.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Again no one currently does this atm, and there are no "cheaper and less bureaucratically constricted launch systems" atm to launch these things. SpaceX isn't ready for these kinds of launches it's not proven enough. ULA is just a " bureaucratically constricted" as the SLS. I don't understand why people are proposing to play around with projects that are already insanely risky and hard to approve, we get to send a probe to Europa, which on it's own is complicated enough and now you want to build a whole orbital launch platform around it? Let the industry do it, blow up some stuff in orbit till they make it work, blow up some more stuff in transit till they get things sorted and then lets use it to launch billion dollar probes to Jupiter.

dogma1138 10y ago

The ISS was assembled when we had the shuttle, we never had reassembly and relaunch in orbit. Commercial satellite refueling market won't be viable by 2020, we might have a handful of attempts. And I didn't read anything into your comment since there isn't much beyond ULA (Delta, Atlas) and Falcon to launch the damn thing to begin with. And I'm sorry that I don't want to bet on technology that isn't there yet in any shape and form to start planning for a mission that is supposed to launch in 7-8 years with a limited launch window and a failure that would set you back a decade + and not insurance payout + 18 months like if it was a commercial launch to LEO. And again you are missing the point we need big rockets it's not even a question, and SLS is the only big rocket anyone is currently building, if Space X comes up with a Falcon Heavy Plus capable of competing against the SLS on both payload mass and reliability there would be a room to talk. We need NASA, and the US need cross state national projects because they are industry incubators, yes they are inefficient at times but you get plenty for them. If going to Europa also means that the US is back at building Saturn V class rockets it's a huge plus regardless the costs.

greglindahl 10y ago
Oh, so the modules launched by the Russians, and all of the supply vehicles, somehow don't count? I'm afraid that you're coming at this argument with a very different and impossible-to-understand worldview.
jacoblambda 10y ago
Depending on the design, the craft could be assembled at off one of the docks for the ISS. Assembly would be little different than the actual construction of the ISS and could be launched with cheaper and less bureaucratically constricted launch systems.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Again no one currently does this atm, and there are no "cheaper and less bureaucratically constricted launch systems" atm to launch these things. SpaceX isn't ready for these kinds of launches it's not proven enough. ULA is just a " bureaucratically constricted" as the SLS. I don't understand why people are proposing to play around with projects that are already insanely risky and hard to approve, we get to send a probe to Europa, which on it's own is complicated enough and now you want to build a whole orbital launch platform around it? Let the industry do it, blow up some stuff in orbit till they make it work, blow up some more stuff in transit till they get things sorted and then lets use it to launch billion dollar probes to Jupiter.