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Originally Posted by SavageDoc
Right, because we don't have the need to. Should we have the sudden need to, its stops looking silly right quick. Plowshares are better than swords... until you need a sword.
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Nope, it still looks pretty silly with the shelf technology. The heaviest payload vehicle ever launched into low orbit has a capacity of 100 tons and not one of them is even in production as we speak.
You could turn on the faucets tot eh tune of hundreds of billions per year and it would still be years until you got _anything_ in _low_ orbit.
Sending anything resembling fleets of space barges floating through the solar system would take decades and a lot of technical advances.
You could do it on a hard science basis weith unlimited funding but you can't do it easily and you certainly can't do it quickly. Not having to break the laws of physics is less help than some people think.
Fred Brackin