Jumping the Gun.

> From: Ed Minchau [mailto:spider_boris@...]
> For a three-SSME version of shuttle C that's 77000 kg to 400 km
> orbit. That's purely cargo, you'd have to find another way to get
> your astronauts to orbit. That is not a lot of mass, particularly
> when most of that will be fuel and radiation sheilding (of course,
> one can double for the other). Not a lot of mass left over for life
> support for the trip or for the base to be established on Mars.

This is why I assumed the launch of (wait for it) more than one shuttle C.

The regular-brand shuttle costs $500M each launch. A large part of this bill is the fixed cost of the shuttle launch facilities. One of the bigger problems with the shuttle is that it requires months of maintinance between flights. I made the assumption that Shuttle-C could be launched twice as often (hence cost $250M or less) and could carry 65,000kg of useful payload.

$1,000M - Shuttle C development costs (NASA quote)
$1,000M - Shuttle/C+ET based mars transfer ship
$1,500M - Six shuttle-c flights to refuel ET.
$1,000M - Construction of orbital fuel store & 'ship yards'
$ 500M - Soyuz crew rotations.

You end up with a ship capable of ~8kmps delta-V. More than enough to get to mars and back, and that's without any benifits of aerobreaking. Now I'm sure that's a really stupid way of doing it and is probably full of flaws. But it is an interesting speculation none-the-less, wouldn't you agree?

ANTIcarrot.