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In the past he's said he wants to be able to land about 50 metic tons on Mars per launch, which indicates an ability to loft about 200 metric tons (+/- depending on the transfer engine type - less for electric drive). A monster.

In theory they could multi stage the rocket to the Earth orbiting station and build an intertellar unit in sections up there.Thus negating the need for one large launch from Earth land based stations.

Fuel depots and on-orbit assembly are hot topics right now, but to do them you need to get lots of stuff up there at the lowest possible cost / pound. That requires an affordable super-heavy launcher. NASA's upcoming SLS is a super-heavy, but far from affordable. SpaceX has the edge right now on how to do both.

  • 2 weeks later...

arachnoid is quite correct in many ways. read this book, best Mars exploration book i've ever read, and i think i read most of them:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Colonisation-of-Mars-ebook/dp/B0053TZ8NC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337962819&sr=8-1

the key points of this book are that corporate power is more likely to get space done right, and that advanced AI will do most of the work...

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