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That may become feasible when launch costs decrease. But when it costs $10k a pound to get stuff into orbit (and probably much more to get it to Mars) it pays to be conservative about the payload.


I hate to be the bearer of good news, but launch costs these days is more like $4k/lb.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=301


Why are Soviet and Chinese rockets half as cheap to launch per pound than comparable American and European rockets? What are they trading off?


Somewhat surprisingly and quite sadly, they are mostly trading off bureaucracy.


That reference states that it's about $4k for low earth orbit, $10k for higher orbit (geosynchronous transfer orbit). So the cost to get a pound to Mars is certainly >$10k.




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