Since the beginning of space activities all programs have been Earth based.Actually Earth, being at the bottom of a deep gravity well is one of the worst locations toperform extraterrestrial activities and launch space missions.Such location has forced the space program to severe limitations such as high cost per Kgof payload in orbit with unaffordable or non economic returns from most missions, limitedpayload size due to the limited dimensions of the rocket booster, need to assemble inspace bigger hardware such as the space station or other planned missions.For the future the Orion plan for a return to the Moon, while representing a positive stepforward from decades of no progress, is still based on the traditional Earth basedapproach and is a further example of the disadvantages of all the previous limitations.A completely different picture can be considered if we could base future missions not fromthe traditional earth based spaceports but from a space based platform, utilizing mostlymaterials and resources already in space, avoiding high costs, dimensional limitations andallowing private commercial initiatives.
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