Digest Number 287

>IIRC getting to GEO from Terra takes more delta-vee
than landing on the
surface of Luna.<

Can you explain to me how that is possible?

>> Time lag? Well in GEO there is some time lag.<

The time lag could make things very difficult unless
the robot was smart enough to do most of the work on
it's own. For instance you could give the command
"remove cover plate" and the robot would have a
program in it to remove the plate. You couldn't have
teleoperated robots where you make every move for
them.

>Why is GEO so cost prohibitive? <

What we need to make GEO access cheaper is a plasma
tug. There are several types of plasma engines that
have been used and proved themselves. We trade speed
for high ISP and just accelerate the load up to GEO
taking far longer but also far cheaper.