Quote:
Originally Posted by adimar
The simplest solution for getting the required delta-V is to just use staging.
A basic TL9 fusion rocket design (i.e. single fusion rocket engine with 13 hydrogen fuel tanks)
provides approx 250mps. Each stage burns through it's fuel in approx 2 month of continuous operation. Just stack these one over the other for whatever performance is needed.
Personally I would design this ship as a-SM11 automated cargo vessel.
It don't require exotic fuel which may be difficult to produce in a still developing colony. The craft is relatively cheap (43 mil SM9 stage, 140 SM10 stage, 430mil sm11 stage) So approx 610mil (not including hydrogen cost) for 750mps
Final stage would SM8 (4mil cost) and include a control room.
if this is a shipment from earth to another planet it would have two soft-landing systems (since destination doesn't necessarily have infra to go get the shipment from orbit) and contains 850 tons of cargo.
That's a shipment cost of less than 1mil per ton of cargo. (we pay more than that to launch to low earth orbit).
Hope this helps
Adi
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I specifically stated in the OP that staging was not really a viable option