Low Cost Lunar Missions part 2: A lunar highway
If we ever want to make space exploration affordable, we'll have to get some kind of "Highway" between destinations, to make transportation between those destinations safe and affordable. One of the first destinations that might be of use here is the moon; it's an easy to reach destination, being close home, and has a lot of value scientifically, for further development of our exploration capabilities and possibly even economically (I generally consider lunar/asteroid resources to make money humbug, but still something to keep in mind). Establishing a "highway" between the Earth and the moon would be vital to make visits to the moon affordable, and lately I've been contemplating how it might be done. The main focus in this blog will be European launchers and hardware, as my original focus was designing a European lunar architecture that could be achieved with existing or near-term launch vehicles. Like last time, the European Ariane 5 and 6 launche...