I'm too busy to blog much, but the Chairforce Engineer has a follow-up to the previous discussion (see here, too) on lunar transportation architectures and L1.

Take the ChairForce architecture described in the link but substitute Proton for Delta / Atlas and substitute Soyuz / Shenzou for a new bi-conic CEV capsule.

What you then have is the mission architecture that is the basis for my Platinum Moon novel, nearing completion. Buy that spare FGB-2 on the shelf in Russia and a Bigelow hab and send to EML-1 via Proton.

Design and deploy a re-useable LSAM including a one-way-to-stay cargo variant that can deliver a lunar LOX production facility to the lunar surface.

Robotically dock the LSAM at the EML-1 Gateway. Launch crew in Soyuz & mate with Proton Block 4 upper stage. Fly to EML-1. Change trains and land in the re-useable LSAM. Four legs (down and welded ) either with RL-10 class engines or some of those new pressure fed methane engines Masten and XCOR are working on. (ITAR is a sub-plot in my novel.)

Same engines for descent and ascent. Methane or LH2 from Terra (solar ion or tether delivery). LOX from Luna. Kerosene might even work, heh!

Return to EML-1. Park the LSAM at Gateway. Change trains back to Soyuz. Fly home.

Wash, rinse and repeat as often as desired.

= = =

Made-in-USA EELV works just as well as Proton, maybe better, but that will merely cost five times as much and we don't yet have a functioning man-rated bi-conic CEV capsule.

Didn't Don Rumsfeld say: "Use the rockets we have, not the rockets we wished we had."

PS:

One way for US Space Command to deploy - - and conceal - - an EML-1 space station would be to find a helpful billionaire (think Howard Hughes and the CIA Glomar Explorer project - - remember manganese nodules on the ocean floor? Now think lunar platinum) and have him deploy that station using Russian rockets.

Plaster the facility in pro-UN & GreenPeace bumperstickers but make a behind the scenes deal that US Space Command gains operational control upon request.

Voila! US Space Command gains control over EML-1 but the world thinks the facility is owned by a vaguely pro-United Nations billionaire nut-case.

Since the Chair Force Engineer site doesn't appear to accept comments, I will respond to his disclaimer here. (Rand apparently deems blog$pot questionable)

http://chairforceengineer.blog$pot.com/2006/02/disclaimer.html

And point out the existence of his disclaimer so no one mistakes my twisted plot ideas for anything he advocates.

James Bond, Tom Clancy, John LeCarre. (Well, I can at least make those comparisons in my dreams). My billionaire eccentric is named Harold Hewitt (a/k/a the "Mage of the Merrimac") a self made New Hampshire man who marries a proper English lady from Hampshire. My plot speculations have been influenced by the real life involvement of Howard Hughes with that CIA plan to raise a lost Soviet sub under cover of deep sea manganese mining. Ross Perot's exploits in "On Wings of Eagles" has also influenced my speculation. That said, I disclaim any resemblance of Hewitt to those gentlemen other than via pure coincidence.

I do believe EML-1 will make someday make a dandy commercial cross-roads and I desire to see private sector facilities built there. I would prefer that NASA not build an ISS-2 or even a NASA-only station at EML-1 but rather allow the private sector first access for all the superb lunar access reasons many have discussed.

But I believe my main point stands. Whatever the USA can do with EELV, Russia can do with Proton at a tiny fraction of the price, if they raise sufficient cash. My novel creates a fictional setting where that happens. And Hewitt will face a huge ITAR prosecution in the first sequel (as part of the official cover story).

So no one try my plan at home. ;-)