By-Pass the Moon?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Joe Strout wrote:
>
> Yeah, but it's also a REALLY long way a way. If we had fusion
> rockets, then sure, that might make sense. But with the chemical
> rockets currently available to us, I just don't think that's
> practical (at least until we have a thriving cislunar economy
already).
>

If we had fusion rockets, then the Moon would be even more attractive.

> But I do agree that, given a choice between claiming Ceres and
> claiming Mars, I'd stake my claim on Ceres any day. :)
>

Phobos or Deimos would be higher on my list than either Mars or Ceres.

And NEO objects would be even more attractive.

But you cannot beat the Moon as having the shortest round trip travel
times, days versus years, even for NEOs.

In the real world, the bean counters are mostly interested in getting
fastest possible ROI. That is why commercial operators use
chemical rockets to boost communications satellites, instead of much
more efficient but much slower electric propulsion.