Not sure if this is worth its own topic, but there has been scattered (distributed ) talk of distributed lift. It struck me that the SpaceX BFR/BFS vision for Mars relies heavily on this.
Preparing a push for Europa Clipper would be a worthy first objective;
there has been scattered (distributed ) talk of distributed lift.
But, first, you need to prove that rivets work in space. (or bolts, or ...)
Preparing a push for Europa Clipper would be a worthy first objective; the technology for this push could easily be ready before the spacecraft.
Wouldn't DL benefit from a staging area, a really good space station design for serving such and operation? Or am I still living in a Disney/2001 world of stations in LEO for real work?
Are we talking about Distributed Lift, as in the ULA/LM concept, or just orbital structure assembly?
I don't particularly mean the ULA specific idea. Really, I guess the topic is more about what will need to be done in-orbit to prepare for BEO missions(*) ... the concept of fuelling in-orbit is implied in the BFR presentations but they gloss over issues such as boil-off. This alone leads to either a very rapid succession of tanker launches (which seems a stretch), or propellant depots. And you can rapidly expand to include no end of infrastructure