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> All your crew and all your materials are ultimately coming from Earth This is the key state differentiator. If you bring everything from Earth, it doesn't m

• Yizahi 6y ago
  Exactly what do you plan to acquire/create outside of Earth, and from where to where do you plan to transfer it realistically? Except for fully autonomous human colonies which will mine stuff nearby and use, almost no transfer of resources in space makes sense, it is way too costly and there is no demand (even imaginary). Since there is no need for that, there is also no need for transfer stations (warehouses) anywhere, be it a planet orbit or Lagrange points.
  • m4rtink 6y ago
    Propelant depots, those make all the difference.
    • zardo 6y ago
      They make sense for an individual mission. Bring up fuel and leave it in the parking orbit. But the optimal parking orbits are going to be different for different destinations, vehicles, and times.
• jandrese 6y ago
  It makes sense if you want to use the rockets you already have instead of building the absolutely titanic rockets you would need to carry everything in one trip. There are metallurgical limits to just how big you can make the rockets as well. But this isn't necessarily advocating for a full time in-orbit refuelling station either. The plan might be to instead launch 2 or 3 rockets, 1 with the stuff and the others with fuel. They meet up in orbit and the fuel rockets refill the stuff rocket so it can go on to Mars or wherever, then they return to Earth for the next mission.