It really puts the frustration I have with Musk's constant "we're going to Mars" in context. Yes, a big rocket is necessary prerequisite for Mars. No, it is not the only problem you need to solve.
And also having worked with the reality of human spaceflight operations, we are just not ready yet to send a spacecraft into deep space for months on end. It's easy to throw out blithe statements that we "just need a big spaceship", or we'll use ion drives or some other such tech, but the reality is way more messy than that. We just aren't ready yet and we won't be for some time.
It really puts the frustration I have with Musk's constant "we're going to Mars" in context. Yes, a big rocket is necessary prerequisite for Mars. No, it is not the only problem you need to solve.
And also having worked with the reality of human spaceflight operations, we are just not ready yet to send a spacecraft into deep space for months on end. It's easy to throw out blithe statements that we "just need a big spaceship", or we'll use ion drives or some other such tech, but the reality is way more messy than that. We just aren't ready yet and we won't be for some time.