An analysis by John Bucknell (x-Spacex senior engineer) describes an 11 meter diameter robotic vehicle with a 6000-megawatt nuclear thermal rocket in a NTTR arrangement. The rocket would be single stage to orbit and would be immediately be able to refly after landing and refueling much like todays airliners. Even fully reusable Spacex rockets where all stages are reused would need to be re-assembled.

He describes SSTOH missions to place a 21 meter minor and 214 meter major diameter toroidal habitat in space, capable of full terrestrial gravity simulation by spinning at 3 rpm. The habitat begins as 2 thin films defining the interior and exterior surfaces of the torus, which is then inflated with lunar-sourced water in a 1m thick shell and allowed to freeze.

Access to space is driven by the economics of launch vehicles. A previously published rocket propulsion cycle called the Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket (NTTR) is able to achieve payload fractions of more than 45% to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This rocket is intended to be completely reusable for the launch mission as it is a Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) vehicle, which improves economics vastly. However, providing material to LEO is not always the most economical solution for permanent space-based habitation. In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) has been proposed as a method for avoiding the Earth’s gravity well for space-based construction with solutions proposed using Lunar, Martian as well as other resources.

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