Another issue with this would be that a Mars vehicle would probably be big, and to a large extent designed to never land on anything. Getting it down to the Moon safely and back out again would be very complicated. The solution is to do a fuel run with a smaller craft that can disengage from the main craft several times, but then you're doing several landings and takeoffs and that's going to shoot the risk WAY up.
I think that we would be wise to invest in a space elevator on the Moon. We can't support one on Earth with currently understood technology, but the Moon is different and it could be done with modern materials. A plan of this sort would seriously reduce the cost of lunar development and increase the viability of the plan in the article.
I think that we would be wise to invest in a space elevator on the Moon. We can't support one on Earth with currently understood technology, but the Moon is different and it could be done with modern materials. A plan of this sort would seriously reduce the cost of lunar development and increase the viability of the plan in the article.