Lunar Testing

2 – In their “Lunar Gravity, Resources and Outpost Overview” the writers indicated that “The Moon not only offers cheaper launch costs, but also has plenty of natural resources we can strategically take advantage of.”

Although the resources may be available, the time required building suitable extraction and refining capabilities on the moon would themselves require perhaps decades of development and construction.

Proposing lunar testing of all Mars bound systems is a logical step but it skews the overall time line by at least a decade. The only way to avoid this would be to build “rocket factories”, each of which is a self contained component of the greater colony.

An example would be a rocket designed to land and test the extraction of water without the need of additional materials or facilities and equipment.

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