Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re:25 tons

re:25 tons

If you have a fuel transfer station in lunar orbit, then that's quite enough, and that's what the current Russian architecture proposes. As its also sufficient for satellites, that allows economies of scale in production.

The problem here is with hypergolics versus lox-alcohol and lox-methane fuels. The later can be used for life support if need be. One big question is the long term storage of lox - I find I don't know what that is right now. Oh well.

Both Russia and China have well developed hypergolic control systems - my guess is that Klipr may end up with lox-alcohol control systems and lox-methane mains. At least the lunar variant of it. We'll see.

China is at the Gemini stage of technological development, and my guess is that funding will be held at the current level with the current flight rate. The first flight tested launch and re-entry. This flight is testing the life support systems. The next flight will test the suits and manuevering, and the one after that will test docking.

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