Spirit & Opportunity @ + Years

[August]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Launches could be done cheaply if in place of a rocket a magnetic catapult was used. Think Railgun with human cargo. Fling it in to LEO and have a trans-lunar shuttle pick it up. Then use a cycler to send the people to Mars. BTW a cycler is basicly a space station in a perabolic orbit that goes between Earth and Mars orbit. If we ever get a space elevator working off loading people from Earth would be dirt cheap, they could even live on the elevator much like in Clarke's 3001 and The Fountians of Paradise.

Interesting. Do you think these things could be invented and built before the latter half of this century and the critical mass that Zachstar and I have been talking about?