FuturePundit: We Are Still Not In The Space Age ( not so fast )

FuturePundit: h/t Instapundit

comment:

I am tempted to be critical here, just a little.  The big deal here is that space refueling may get enabled now.  If you deliver fuel to space for $250 lb, that means for the amount of fuel for the Saturn IV that powered the lunar landing and return capsule, you'd have the rocket and the main mass, the fuel, costing only a little over $50 million to deliver it.

It currently doesn't make much sense to deliver fuel, but if you use one reusable rocket to deliver 10 loads of fuel, it starts to make sense.  A Falcon Heavy can deliver about half as much as a Saturn V.  Ten Falcon Heavy launches can deliver 5 times as much as one Saturn V.

If a rocket deployed permanently in space is also reusable, you could make a trip to the moon for what it now takes just to launch to Low Earth Orbit.  This could make the moon routinely reachable.  Repeat the same process by setting up refueling bases on the moon, which you can now reach frequently, ( provided that this works ) and then Mars becomes accessible.

What makes me hold back a bit on the criticism is that it hasn't been proven yet.  You still need to prove that it can be done, as well as space refueling.