Commercial HLV and R&D

[Serafeim]

  The only reason they build things in 40K lbs pieces is that they are constrained by max size and load limits of roadways. Shipping something bigger is sometimes possible, but a large effort. If that was not a constraint, it would be far cheaper to build bigger modules (ie the entire house) in the "factory" and ship it as one piece. Same for HLV. If you have a way to get it there, it is cheaper and safer to build it in one place and ship it intact. If you have constraints on size, you accept the higher build costs and risks.

good point.I space the size of ships ,buildings ,stations and their construction blocks can be from tiny to huge.The limits are veery bigg.

Dont think for space construction always as for the costruction on earths gravity well..

[2552]

However, Lori Garver made it quite clear she wants a sparkly new rocket utilising cutting-edge technology.  So, once again, the EELVs will be starting with a big disadvantage.

Do you have a citation for that?

I was about to ask that too, thanks. I don't remember hearing anything about a new HLV in the future, and in fact the Heavy-lift and Propulsion R&D line item does not mention new launch vehicles, only "heavy-lift systems", which probably doesn't mean a new HLV.

I think Ben's post is partly misleading. Garver said two things relating to HLV development during the Feb 1st teleconference:

a. the new line-item "HLV and in-space propulsion" is for basic research and won't be directed at any current hardware or projects talked about.

and

b. under the PoR no funds would have been allocated to HLV development until 2016 and that this hasn't changed yet. No funds for actual HLV development are in the budget until 2015.

I don't know if the Bolden press conference I saw just now on NASA TV was live or not, but Bolden basically said there will be a new HLV in the future (2020s), as a backup in case the commercial rockets fail (which they likely won't). He didn't define what HLV meant specifically though (100T, 50T, 25T? bigger Atlas/Delta?), and no one asked if the ULA EELV architecture is being considered (though I didn't see the whole thing).

[Ben the Space Brit]

I don't know if the Bolden press conference I saw just now on NASA TV was live or not, but Bolden basically said there will be a new HLV in the future (2020s), as a backup in case the commercial rockets fail (which they likely won't). He didn't define what HLV meant specifically though (100T, 50T, 25T? bigger Atlas/Delta?), and no one asked if the ULA EELV architecture is being considered (though I didn't see the whole thing).

FWIW, I'm sticking with my prediction that 'HLV' refers to a 50t to 100t to LEO payload lifter that is derived in some way from either the EELVs or some other commercial launcher.  I particularly note the five-core super-heavy versions of the EELVs.  IMHO, at least, SDLV becomes exponentially less and less likely the further you get from shuttle retirement.  Augustine was right that the concept only really makes total sense if you want continuity with the shuttle program and, from what I've heard and read so far, that isn't a priority.

@ mmeijeri & Robotbeat

It was pointed out on another thread that the hypergolic transfer system is slow and inefficient; certainly unsuited for the transfer levels that would be required for an exploration mission (50t for a decent-sized MTV, a lot more for a 'Battlestar Galactica' grand tour spacecraft).  Add on to that the probability that the system will need to be cryogenic to a certain degree (although I dearly hope they replace LH2 with LCH4 for those applications) and you see that it is going to be a very different beast.

[mmeijeri]

It was pointed out on another thread that the hypergolic transfer system is slow and inefficient; certainly unsuited for the transfer levels that would be required for an exploration mission (50t for a decent-sized MTV, a lot more for a 'Battlestar Galactica' grand tour spacecraft).

Nope, see discussion on the depot thread. It would work.

  Add on to that the probability that the system will need to be cryogenic to a certain degree, although I dearly hope they replace LH2 with LCH4 for those applications and you see that it is going to be a very different beast.

Not necessary. Desirable, but not necessary. Hypergolics are excellent lander propellants. No problem if you were stuck with them for decades. And you could easily combine a single stage reusable lander with a cryogenic crasher or even a reusable uncrasher stage. Note that Constellation still proposed a hypergolic ascent stage. This would be similar.

Why don't you guys just admit you want an HLV for the heck of it? No shame in that. It's just not a very good reason to actually build one.

Do you want an HLV or do you want to go to the moon/Mars? That's the question.

[2552]

OK, presser is on again. Bolden mention EELV as test platform for LAS, etc. Also mentions "an Ares lite" HLV as a possibility?

Edit: turns out I only missed the beginning part.

Edit: Bolden says HLV is "critical" for BEO, science, DoD (? hint towards 50T or lower?).

[Ben the Space Brit]

Not necessary. Desirable, but not necessary. Hypergolics are excellent lander propellants. No problem if you were stuck with them for decades. And you could easily combine a single stage reusable lander with a cryogenic crasher or even a reusable uncrasher stage. Note that Constellation still proposed a hypergolic ascent stage. This would be similar.

Don't mix stuff up.  We're talking about the EDS here, not the lander system.  I understand that you would need a lot of hypergolic fuel for TLI.

Why don't you guys just admit you want an HLV for the heck of it?

Because that would be a lie and that would be naughty.

Do you want an HLV or do you want to go to the moon/Mars? That's the question.

Both can be achieved.  IMHO, both are necessary, at least in the first stages.

[butters]

I appreciate the argument about the economics of transporting larger structures if we had the necessary infrastructure, but even if transportation infrastructure were no issue, would we transport houses fully furnished, or would we still assume that furnishings would be delivered separately? 

I contend that we would deliver the structure in as few pieces as possible but still load in many of the furnishings and appliances on site.

If we have a lunar program that depends on HLVs, we'll cancel it before it evolves into a Mars program that adds propellant transfer.  Otherwise we'd have already gone to Mars with the Apollo/Saturn architecture.  If we retrace those steps, the best outcome we could expect is for history to repeat itself, and we may not be so fortunate in the prevailing political/economic climate.

As for the destination/road argument: We know we can land on the moon with HLV.  We did it over 40 years ago.  The road we chose then is the reason we haven't been there since, and the road we choose now will determine how far we go in the future.

If we don't "pretend" for the sake of argument that we can't get to the moon without propellant transfer and some amount of on-orbit assembly, then we'll never go anywhere that actually demands these approaches for all practical purposes.

If we go to the moon with medium-lift and propellant transfer, then we can go mars with heavy-lift and propellant transfer if we see fit -- and developing the HLV will be among the least of the challenges involved.

[mmeijeri]

Don't mix stuff up.  We're talking about the EDS here, not the lander system.  I understand that you would need a lot of hypergolic fuel for TLI.

I'm not mixing stuff up, we're just talking about different things. The EDS has to be LOX/LH2, no doubt about it. I've always said so. It will have to be refuelable eventually. I've always said so. So far, we are probably in complete agreement.

There is however no reason why the EDS should be huge initially, or even at all. The capsule is not the problem, it's the lander that's the heavy bit. And that is precisely what hypergolic propellant transfer would solve. If you dry-launch the lander, the dry lander will now fit on an EELV and it can be transported to L1/L2 with a Centaur, which can in turn be launched on a Delta fully fueled. The lander is only fueled once it gets to L1/L2. And because it's hypergolic it will fit inside an EELV fairing more easily. And you even get a reusable lander right from the start, although that's not strictly necessary.

Because that would be a lie and that would be naughty.

You're willing to go on the record saying you don't want an HLV for the heck of it? And willing to say that would be wrong? First time I've got an HLV proponent to do that!

Both can be achieved.  IMHO, both are necessary, at least in the first stages.

I contend all you need is the lander. Don't you want to consider the possibility? What if I'm right?

[Patchouli]

Both can be achieved.  IMHO, both are necessary, at least in the first stages.

One of the elephant in the room issues if you have no HLV is fairing size.

Some stuff such as the hab could be an inflatable like a BA330 and launched mostly empty but other stuff like the fuel tanks and aeroshell do not break down well.

[robertross]

I appreciate the argument about the economics of transporting larger structures if we had the necessary infrastructure, but even if transportation infrastructure were no issue, would we transport houses fully furnished, or would we still assume that furnishings would be delivered separately? 

I contend that we would deliver the structure in as few pieces as possible but still load in many of the furnishings and appliances on site.

Analogies: ISS
They sent up the modules with as much as they could due to mass constraints. Plenty of empty volume when they launched. They had to ensure the more difficult things, like wiring end-to-end, was accomplished before hand. Also, thermal constraints require a certain amount of infrastructure to prevent freezing/ect, so keep-alive power is needed during all phases of transport & stand-by, with very small windows of time being off power.

House: Think earthquake. All the chandelliers sway and may fall, desks and chairs not bolted down smash everywhere, computers destroyed. The mass is very important in these decisions. If you can integrate and structurally secure a lot of this before hand, saves you TONS of on-orbit time fitting this out. For the exterior, imagine the amount of EVAs required if you had external infrastruture to configure (plumb, wire, install). Typically 3 EVAs per ISS module/section, so it adds up quickly. If we rely on 20+ launches on EELV variants to launch the infrastructure into space, you really need an station as an orbital assembly yard to stay on top of it, as that is upwards of 40 EVAs (for argument's sake) of various duration.

Says 3 persons (2 EVA, one inside) in a Bigelow style module, which itself needs to be outfitted prior to use. Add an airlock and power generation, and you have a 1-year effort just for the station. 40 EVAs at 1 every 2 days is 80 days. Of course that's too much for astronauts due to rad exposure. So you need in-between crew flights, time for re-supply, troubleshooting time. Of course they aren't coming up all at once. So you have 2 assembly flights launch, do an assembly stretch, stand-down.  Then you have another 1-2 assembly flights launch, do an assembly stretch, stand-down. Flights launch 1 every 2 weeks let's say, alternate launch sites, plus a crew launch every 2 months to swap out.

Loss of a crew member, or a module problem, or tool problem, or part problem, and the cycle could break. They may be able to work around, but no guarantee every time. And of course you have weather, pad issues, spacecraft issues, hardware issues. A lot of chances for things to go wrong.

[Ben the Space Brit]

Don't mix stuff up.  We're talking about the EDS here, not the lander system.  I understand that you would need a lot of hypergolic fuel for TLI.

I'm not mixing stuff up, we're just talking about different things. The EDS has to be LOX/LH2, no doubt about it. I've always said so. It will have to be refuelable eventually. I've always said so. So far, we are probably in complete agreement.

There is however no reason why the EDS should be huge initially, or even at all. The capsule is not the problem, it's the lander that's the heavy bit. And that is precisely what hypergolic propellant transfer would solve. If you dry-launch the lander, the dry lander will now fit on an EELV and it can be transported to L1/L2 with a Centaur, which can in turn be launched on a Delta fully fueled. The lander is only fueled once it gets to L1/L2. And because it's hypergolic it will fit inside an EELV fairing more easily. And you even get a reusable lander right from the start, although that's not strictly necessary.

Don't forget that the EDS has to move the post-tanking stack, including its own mass.  This means the mass including all the hypergol you've just pumped over into the lander (and why not into the orbiter too? In for a penny...).  The EELV upper stages can certainly get the empty modules to LEO.  However, they no longer have the capability to move the heavyweight stack onto trans-lunar orbit. 

Additionally, don't forget that there is a minimum total delta-v to the lunar surface.  So, the saving to transfer to the EML points is actually a false saving, especially as you are using a lower-isp propellent in the lander to go from EML to LLO and then the surface and back.  So, in practice, the stack will actually be heavier than for a direct insertion into LLO because of the extra propellent the lander will need for the EML-to-LLO transfer.  Worse, the approach to the EML halo orbits requires several high-energy plane-change manoeuvres (this is why CxP dumped the idea - the delta-v requirements were turning Altair's lower stage into virtually a second EDS).

Now, this isn't a problem with heavy lift as you have more delta-v to play with for a heavier stack thanks to the EDS carrying more propellent.  It can thus perform some of the plane change manoeuvres itself and carry a lander with more propellent too.  However, with a Centaur-based stack (and I think I read somewhere that DIVCUS is unsuitable because of its lack of long-term boil-off controls) you run into a limit of how much delta-v it can provide to a heavy stack.

There are two obvious ways around this, both using dual launch.  The first (as championed by the DIRECT team) is to launch a fully-fuelled EDS separately from the crew modules.  Depending on how you arrange the crew modules, this can be done with as little as only one rendezvous before TLI and one afterwards or two before and none afterwards. 

The other option is to use some variant of LOR.  Now, the dual launch/LOR mission is bordering on practical using EELV Phase 1s or standard EELVs and LEO propellent transfer.  I will yield to anyone else who can crunch the numbers if Centuar could handle even just the seperate lander's TLI burn without requiring a lander so lightweight that it makes going back to the Moon not worth the expense.

A medium-term solution is to pre-launch the lander months ahead of the mission and have it carried out to either the EML points or LLO by an uncrewed SEP tug and then send just the orbiter afterwards.  Another is cryogenic propellent transfer in LEO.  The long-term solution is, of course, to have single-stage reusable landers operating from a EML hub station.  Expensive and difficult to set up but, when we get around to seriously settling and working the Moon, economies of scale will make the investment worth it.

FWIW, ULA's alternate proposals use the EELV Phase 1 upgrades (20-50t to LEO) and multiple cryogenic propellent transfers.  If there was a realistic option using the unchanged EELVs, I'm pretty sure they would have suggested it.  I generally presume that this is the lowest individual launch mass mission plan but this is offset by the risks from the multiple propellent transfer events, one of which, refuelling the return vehicle in LLO, is a high-risk LOC event, let alone LOM.

[mmeijeri]

Don't forget that the EDS has to move the post-tanking stack, including its own mass.  This means the mass including all the hypergol you've just pumped over into the lander (and why not into the orbiter too? In for a penny...).

No, the whole point is you don't fuel the lander until it gets to L1/L2. This way it will fit on both the launch vehicle and the EDS. The EDS would be launched separately, fully fueled, just as with Constellation.

  The EELV upper stages can certainly get the empty modules to LEO.  However, they no longer have the capability to move the heavyweight stack onto trans-lunar orbit. 

Which is why you shouldn't do that.

Additionally, don't forget that there is a minimum total delta-v to the lunar surface.  So, the saving to transfer to the EML points is actually a false saving, especially as you are using a lower-isp propellent in the lander to go from EML to LLO and then the surface and back.

1. you don't have to stop in LLO, you can go straight to the lunar surface
2. you get back most of your efficiency losses due to lower Isp because you can use low energy trajectories to get the propellant from LEO to L1/L2.

I've done the sums.

  So, in practice, the stack will actually be heavier than for a direct insertion into LLO because of the extra propellent the lander will need for the EML-to-LLO transfer.  Worse, the approach to the EML halo orbits requires several high-energy plane-change manoeuvres (this is why CxP dumped the idea - the delta-v requirements were turning Altair's lower stage into virtually a second EDS).

Now, this isn't a problem with heavy lift as you have more delta-v to play with for a heavier stack thanks to the EDS carrying more propellent.  It can thus perform some of the plane change manoeuvres itself and carry a lander with more propellent too.  However, with a Centaur-based stack (and I think I read somewhere that DIVCUS is unsuitable because of its lack of long-term boil-off controls) you run into a limit of how much delta-v it can provide to a heavy stack.

Sorry, but this is all incorrect. You need to do the sums.

There are two obvious ways around this, both using dual launch.  The first (as championed by the DIRECT team) is to launch a fully-fuelled EDS separately from the crew modules.  Depending on how you arrange the crew modules, this can be done with as little as only one rendezvous before TLI and one afterwards or two before and none afterwards. 

Also championed by Constellation... And this is precisely what I suggested earlier.

The other option is to use some variant of LOR.  Now, the dual launch/LOR mission is bordering on practical using EELV Phase 1s or standard EELVs and LEO propellent transfer.  I will yield to anyone else who can crunch the numbers if Centuar could handle even just the seperate lander's TLI burn without requiring a lander so lightweight that it makes going back to the Moon not worth the expense.

L1/L2 rendez-vous in my proposal, though LOR would work with ACES.

A medium-term solution is to pre-launch the lander months ahead of the mission and have it carried out to either the EML points or LLO by an uncrewed SEP tug and then send just the orbiter afterwards.

No need for a SEP tug, you can use a Centaur, or even have the lander self-ferry.

  Another is cryogenic propellent transfer in LEO.

Yes, medium term solution. Perfectly compatible with what I proposed. Part of my proposal in fact. Start with a wet-launched EDS, upgrade to a refuelable upper stage. Optionally upgrade the lander, or partially upgrade it with a crasher/uncrasher stage.

  The long-term solution is, of course, to have single-stage reusable landers operating from a EML hub station.  Expensive and difficult to set up but, when we get around to seriously settling and working the Moon, economies of scale will make the investment worth it.

Can be done straight away. A lander could serve as a station / depot. A full station is an optional upgrade, Bigelow modules would be the obvious choice.

FWIW, ULA's alternate proposals use the EELV Phase 1 upgrades (20-50t to LEO) and multiple cryogenic propellent transfers.  If there was a realistic option using the unchanged EELVs, I'm pretty sure they would have suggested it.

They went for a more advanced long term solution.

  I generally presume that this is the lowest individual launch mass mission plan but this is offset by the risks from the multiple propellent transfer events, one of which, refuelling the return vehicle in LLO, is a high-risk LOC event, let alone LOM.

Refueling would probably be done at L1/L2, after the crew had left. No risk at all.

Ben, I've been able to dismiss most of your objections easily, in part because you were reacting to something else than what I proposed. Are you sure you are giving this idea an honest chance or are you just trying to promote your favourite launcher?

[Ben the Space Brit]

Are you sure you are giving this idea an honest chance or are you just trying to promote your favourite launcher?

... Actually, my favorite launcher is Atlas-V Phase 3B

[edit]
Because you deserve a full answer.

So, your solution is to create a hypergolic depot at one of the EML points.  Er... how will this be built and operated? You are creating an enormous long pole and an expensive and complex infrastructure prerequisite rather inconveniently sited about one light second from Earth.  Just getting the fuels out there will be a slow, expensive process.  You will inevitably lose some to boil-off and valve leakage no matter how efficient the storage and trasfer systems, so you will have to send more than you absolutely need.  As the tankers will, like anything else, have to carry enough fuel from themselves as well as their payload, several will be needed for any one mission. 

Congratulations, you have doubled, possibly trebled the cost of the mission.

Once again, these are all costs that can and should be met once there is the destination in place to justify it.  When there are only bi- or perhaps tri-yearly survey missions going on, the system becomes expensive beyond any justification except a philosophical dislike to >30t to LEO launch vehicles.

Are you sure you are giving this idea an honest chance or are you just trying to promote your favorite space utilisation strategy?

[mmeijeri]

So, are you giving it an honest chance, or are you just promoting Atlas-V Phase 3b or some SDLV? Because the approach I sketched shows you don't need either.

[Ben the Space Brit]

@ meijeri,

Sorry, post edited to give my full response.  As you can see, I reject your proposal as expensive, unnecessarily complex and based on a suprious philosophical position.

Nothing personal.  Perhaps we should drop this as we will never see eye-to-eye.

[mmeijeri]

So, your solution is to create a hypergolic depot at one of the EML points.  Er... how will this be built and operated? You are creating an enormous long pole and an expensive and complex infrastructure prerequisite rather inconveniently sited about one light second from Earth.

No, the proposal is to use the lander itself as a depot. In-flight refueling as a precursor to full depots. One lander in LEO for the benefit of small launchers, one at L1/L2.

  Just getting the fuels out there will be a slow, expensive process.  You will inevitably lose some to boil-off and valve leakage no matter how efficient the storage and trasfer systems, so you will have to send more than you absolutely need.  As the tankers will, like anything else, have to carry enough fuel from themselves as well as their payload, several will be needed for any one mission. 

No boil-off, the propellants aren't cryogenic. The tankers could be fairly dumb containers. For propulsion they would rely on Centaurs or Delta upper stages.

Congratulations, you have doubled, possibly trebled the cost of the mission.

Nonsense. Again, do the sums. I have.

Once again, these are all costs that can and should be met once there is the destination in place to justify it.  When there are only bi- or perhaps tri-yearly survey missions going on, the system becomes expensive beyond any justification except a philosophical dislike to >30t to LEO launch vehicles.

Handled above.

Are you sure you are giving this idea an honest chance or are you just trying to promote your favorite space utilisation strategy?

I'm not saying Constellation can't work. It can. It might be unaffordable, but it could certainly work. I'm saying doing it this way means throwing away the best opportunity to stimulate commercial development of space. I'm not saying my approach is somehow optimal for exploration (although I do in fact believe it would be great), I'm saying it is much better for commercial development of space at no cost to exploration.

NASA has a duty to stimulate commercial space as much as it can.

[mmeijeri]

Sorry, post edited to give my full response.  As you can see, I reject your proposal as expensive, unnecessarily complex and based on a suprious philosophical position.

Well, I won't begrudge you your position, but I believe your criticism is in fact technically incorrect. I believe it is no more expensive (IMLEO is comparable, no need for a separate HLV), not very complex and the position has more to do with goals (commercial development of space vs HLV for its own sake) than with philosophy.

Nothing personal.  Perhaps we should drop this as we will never see eye-to-eye.

That indeed seems likely. But how do we do that? You feel inclined to reply if someone states exploration could be done with existing technology at no greater cost than with an SDLV and probably faster. I feel inclined to deny HLV is necessary. We could decide to stop posting altogether or to stop replying to each other. Somehow that doesn't seem very appealing to me. Your mileage may vary.

[Ben the Space Brit]

NASA has a duty to stimulate commercial space as much as it can.

FWIW, I've always thought that your mistake is to massively overestimate how quickly it would be possible to ramp up commercial activity like that.  To me, to rely on such a process immediately would be to massively slow progress and simply create taxpayer-dependent rather than truely-commercial organisations.  Worse, it turns the entire edifice into budget cut fodder.

My way of doing it is far more incremental:

1) Start with a system that can do it on its own but at reduced efficiency (Two launch with HLV vs. one launch with HLV with cryo depot support);

2) Once the first LEO phase, commercially-filled cryogenic depots, is running, you immediately get increased efficiency for your HLV (four or six missions in place of two or three);

2(a) This first phase, along with an internationally-agreed prop transfer interface, also opens cis-lunar space to heavyweight commercial spaceflight.  Supporting this also encourages greater commercial LEO utilisation;

3) Using both your ability to double HLV launches and support crews using commercial cargo, you can do serious work about semi- or even fully-permanent destinations in cis-lunar space;

4) Once a favorable location is selected, you can start on your outpost by using HLVs (supported by LEO cryogenic prop transfer) to launch modules for your lunar surface outpost/base.  You can also use them to deliver the heaviest components of what is the most important part of this - the LaGrange hub;

5) NOW you have reusable single-stage hypergolic landers. Ultimtely, there will need to be research on lunar-ISRU fuels but that is another long-pole item;

6) With both LEO and cis-lunar facilities and prop transfer capabilities, you have all you need for commercially operated Earth-to-LEO-to-EML crew and cargo services.  Your HLVs can now be repurposed for deep space missions.

At each level, it it is important to pause and let the commercial spaceflight entities become more self-supporting.  For example, in LEO, this would involve commecial space platforms and services like comsat maintenance.  This reduces the effect of budget cuts as the private sector has its own stake irrespective of government space utilisation.

[mmeijeri]

FWIW, I've always thought that your mistake is to massively overestimate how quickly it would be possible to ramp up commercial activity like that.  To me, to rely on such a process immediately would be to massively slow progress and simply create taxpayer-dependent rather than truely-commercial organisations.  Worse, it turns the entire edifice into budget cut fodder.

My estimate is that it would take ten to twenty years after freely competed commercial propellant flights start. EELV could probably ramp up fast enough, and EELV Phase 1 certainly could, probably faster than SDLV. So my proposal would be to eliminate something we don't need (SDLV), start with something we have (EELV) and if necessary to upgrade to EELV Phase 1 and then over a period of ten to twenty years migrate the bulk of propellant flights to RLVs or mass produced cheap expendables.

My way of doing it is far more incremental:

You'll be amazed to hear I'll dispute that.

1) Start with a system that can do it on its own but at reduced efficiency (Two launch with HLV vs. one launch with HLV with cryo depot support);

Start with a system can can work on its own, but at reduced efficiency: EELV + hypergolic lander + wet launched EDS vs EELV + dry launched EDS + cryogenic propellant transfer. Not how this stimulates commercial development of space right off the bat. It also starts with reusable landers immediately.

2) Once the first LEO phase, commercially-filled cryogenic depots, is running, you immediately get increased efficiency for your HLV (four or six missions in place of two or three);

Once cryogenic propellant transfer is online, make roughly the other half of all propellant available to launches on small launchers, reducing cost. Also allows use of a crasher/uncrasher stage, which reduces IMLEO and decreases the fraction of all propellant that is toxic.

2(a) This first phase, along with an internationally-agreed prop transfer interface, also opens cis-lunar space to heavyweight commercial spaceflight.  Supporting this also encourages greater commercial LEO utilisation;

My proposal gets there earlier.

3) Using both your ability to double HLV launches and support crews using commercial cargo, you can do serious work about semi- or even fully-permanent destinations in cis-lunar space;

Same can be done with EELVs earlier.

4) Once a favorable location is selected, you can start on your outpost by using HLVs (supported by LEO cryogenic prop transfer) to launch modules for your lunar surface outpost/base.  You can also use them to deliver the heaviest components of what is the most important part of this - the LaGrange hub;

Can be done straight away in my proposal.

5) NOW you have reusable single-stage hypergolic landers. Ultimtely, there will need to be research on lunar-ISRU fuels but that is another long-pole item;

Can be done straight away in my proposal.

6) With both LEO and cis-lunar facilities and prop transfer capabilities, you have all you need for commercially operated Earth-to-LEO-to-EML crew and cargo services.  Your HLVs can now be repurposed for deep space missions.

Can be done straight away in my proposal.

What are you are doing is getting benefits incrementally that you could have had immediately. You are also doing technology development incrementally, but so am I.

[docmordrid]

If the studies show it workable, send the lander to LLO early using a VASIMR solar powered tug.  It's obviously in the game given the NASA JSC solicitation last week.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=20244.0

>
In addition, Studies will be conducted to evaluate a Lunar Tug concept utilizing Variable Specific Impulse Magneto-plasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine capabilities from Low Earth Orbit to Lunar Orbit and libration points.

NASA/JSC intends to purchase these services from Ad Astra Rocket Company.
>

Latest Ad Astra executive summary (PDF)....