Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin
Refueling stations for hard science space ships make the most sense at actual destinations. Perhaps if there were a beanstalk at Deimos you could ride down to the Martian surface the numbers would crunch the right way.
Otherwise, if you're going to Mars, go there directly and refuel after you get there. You might ship fuel to the asteroids from the moons of Mars rather than the planet itself. It'd depend on how high the start-up and manintence costs were.
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It depends if the rocket has enough thrust to do a landing or not, as well as how efficient the rocket is. High efficiency rockets with low thrust could make good use of water available from Deimos, which hardly takes any thrust to land on. Low efficiency rockets could plausibly "island hop" from space rock to space rock, as adding more propellant to a rocket has declining gains.