Eugene Leitl wrote:
Problem is high LEO launch costs. It would seem easier to build automated and teleoperate fabbing and (linear motor) launching facilities on Luna, and circularize orbit mostly by aerobraking.
And if you can put up a bloody huge enough launcher on the moon, (use solar energy or nuclear - why not - it is one place in the system that we don't care about pollution) then you can send material back all the way to LEO by slingshot, and when it is captured by the facility at LEO, if you do it right, you can get a "free" boost in orbit because of greater orbital velocity of moon. So the more you accrete onto your LEO station the higher it flies. Why not make it the size of Wales? Hello Earth Station One. Well, 3 technically I suppose, Mir was One, the thing up there now is Two. Can't really count Skylab. There is a good fun fictional treatment of the lunar-driven space station idea by Donald Kingsbury "The Moon Goddess and the Son". Written before the Soviet Union fell. In the book they get done in by home-made cruise missiles built out of private planes & off-the-shelf, computers, autopilots, and GPS by Afghan refugees who studied aero engineering in Europe and the US. I think it might be worth re-reading. That and "Arslan" AKA "The Wind from Bukhara" by Madeleine (?) Engh. Ken Brown