Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

What's the commercial market for Falcon Heavy? What are the payloads that need the Heavy and will pay for its development and production? If Falcon Heavy or Constellation is critical-path for such a project and they get canned due to funding cuts then the entire project goes down the tubes. The existing Atlas, Delta, Ariane, Falcon, Soyuz and Proton boosters are already in flight, just rubberstamp them out on a production line.

I've argued this before, that a Mars expedition or even a continuously-manned Moonbase project could be carried out with existing off-the-shelf hardware in 15-20 tonne chunks in just the way the Troy video describes. After all there's a 400-tonne manned spacecraft with between 6 and 12 crewmembers in orbit right now and no part of it was larger than 20 tonnes in one piece at launch. A Mars or Moonbase project done the same way would need a higher launch rate but there are more and more launchpads opening up in French Guinea, Texas and Russia to cope with the increased tempo.