The Art Neuro Weblog

Speaking of cases that will not die...
Just a quick word about why it is not worth going to the moon for Oxygen. I have already shown why Luna is OK as a fully supported scientific/military/training base but not as a colony. However I hear from the galery that there is Oxygen there. Actually even if there were free Oxyegen and rocket fuel lying on the moons surface for free we might not bother!

It takes a delta-V of 4.5km/s to get from LEO to Mars. It also takes a delta-V of 4.5km/s to get from LEO to Luna orbit - & 6km/s to get to the Luna surface, say nothing og taking off again. Thus it would take a ship in LEO more fuel to take on anything @ Luna than it would to blast off for Mars. OK?

Only if the Luna base can deliver the Oxy right to LEO for less than the cost of boosting it from Earth are you in biz. This would be good though as Oxy makes up about 70% of the mass of a fueled up rocket! Given the cost of Luna colony support this is unlikely to work out though.

Ultimately the fuel & Oxy to ship things to Mars might be economically supplied from elswhere of course but probably not Luna... guess where ; )

- David