Talk:Size of Infrastructure
The assemblers need not be nano. Self-replicating factories will at first be very big. A good way to simplify the replication process is to have shared componentsmarsp.
As for HLVs, do not fixate on Ares V, constellation and NASA. One example is Sea Dragon. Sea Dragon had a payload capacity of 500 tons or so. HLVs have ~100, MLVs, say, ~20 tons. How hard would it be to scale down Sea Dragon to the size of an HLV or MLV?
If it is not vital to have a HLV for lunar return, it would certainly be preferred. Just not a NASA monstrosity. T.Neo 09:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
