Forget launching fuel, use LOXLEO instead

Speculation alert

Anybody who reads this blog may recall my series on LOXLEO.  The series left off with a discussion of making fuels in space.  The LOXLEO device would gather gases, and then take it to the manufacturing facility in space.  At that point, it could be distributed to space faring vehicles for refueling.

The original LOXLEO device was to be nuclear powered.  However, nuclear power wouldn't be necessary if some other form of power could be substituted in its stead.  That other form could be space solar.

If a space solar facility could be built that would supply the necessary power to collect the atmospheric gases, and then transport them to a higher orbit so that it can be converted into a transportation fuel, the need for launching gases would be minimized.

Perhaps hydrogen can be launched with SpaceX's reusable spacecraft.  Then transported in the way just mentioned.  The advantage is that about 93% of the reaction mass is gathered in space using a LOXLEO device.  It means that about 7 %  of the reaction mass must be launched from the ground, which should reduce launch costs.  If the transport tank can be reused, all the better.

Perhaps a Dragon capsule could be converted into a hydrogen storage tank that could deliver upwards of 5k lbs of liquid hydrogen that could be offloaded and converted to ammonia.  The amount of reaction mass thus gathered by LOXLEO and converted to ammonia/lox would be about 68k lbs.  All for the price of one launch of a Falcon 9.

This could be done until the moon was set up to mine water.  Thenceforth, you could transport nitrogen from the Earth and manufacture the ammonia from the lunar water.  Since it takes far less energy to launch from the moon, it could become an important refueling station for trips to Mars.