> "The real missing part of this article is that NASA's budget is dominated by building launchers." This is one of the reasons I am so excited for Russia's OPS

> "The real missing part of this article is that NASA's budget is dominated by building launchers." This is one of the reasons I am so excited for Russia's OPSEK, which is to be their successor to ISS and used for orbital assembly of interplanetary spacecraft. I think it is a much more straightforward plan than building ever-larger launchers to hoist interplanetary spacecraft all in one go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Piloted_Assembly_and_Experiment_Complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Piloted_Assembly_and_Ex... Don't get me wrong, I like SLS and the BFR/MCT concept (what little we have actually seen of it anyway...) and think/hope NASA and SpaceX can pull those off, but if I were in charge of allocating funding, I'd throw my money at OPSEK.