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The Profound Potential of Elon Musk’s New Rocket
- _Microft 5y agoThis commentary is by Robert Zubrin who is an aerospace engineer himself and in the past had developed technically and financially (albeit not politically) viable missions to Mars ("Mars Direct") himself. He is also founder of the Mars Society. It really shows that he knows what he is talking about.
- adolph 5y agoEssentially, the Space Launch System is just the Space Shuttle, but with the airplane-like orbiter deleted, allowing its mass to be replaced by an upper stage and/or a greatly increased payload. Such a simple variant on the Shuttle should have been flying by the mid-90s, and had it been, we could have seen it serve as an enabling technology for a much more capable space program for the past quarter century.