Friday, March 07, 2025
Quit landing Starships and stage 2 of Falcon. Instead, leave them in orbit to be converted to living space. Build an orbit Kilo Bay/Star Factory to trick out modules to go to the Moon and Mars - either for orbit or landing at future bases. Include habitat modules so that Martians and Loonies can work and settle. Reactors ends the need to avoid Lunar Night. Most importantly, make the next mission be about seeing if gravity can be simulated with spinning modules - either Falcon stage 2s or inflatables. Test subjects need to be instructed not to gut-it-out. We need honest enough tests to station families in orbit.
Test a catapult on the Lunar surface for both free return to Earth and to go to Mars. This will allow us to use the Moon as the factory site, rather than having folks hang out in orbit. Use Dragon to move people - it is just the right size and proven to be safe. Nothing less precious need be landed. If organs are to be grown, have the transplant surgery happen in orbit. Even if you die, you get one heck of a ride to get to surgery.
On Starship, put a bank of Merlin engines on board - with steering - rather than reinventing the wheel. This process can go really fast if we want it to - as long as we quit trying to figure out how to land modules that never should be landed.