Also, two Falcon 9 Heavies can deliver 64,000 kg to LEO. That’s enough to deliver any single component of a Sustainable Space Development (SSD) architecture which ultimately involves bringing lunar water ice to LEO. At that point, who even needs a super heavy lift rocket for any purpose?

It seems to me as though the purpose for a Falcon XX is for a single shot for manned missions beyond LEO. Again, if you can fuel an Earth Departure Stage (EDS) using an LEO fuel depot, then the rest of the stack can be lifted using Falcon 9 Heavies. However, if NASA insists on building a heavy lift vehicle, then I’d rather SpaceX & other commercial companies build it due to the proven cost-effectiveness of the COTS/CRS/(CRS)-approach. But my perspective is, “Develop SSD first – then we’ll realize what we do and don’t need next”.

Total Conversion Drives

…though, of course, Louis’s quantum gravity theories might modify the figures significantly. Have you seen the recent paper on our Universe springing from a black hole?

Cosmology with Torsion …by Nikodem Poplawski. Very interesting ideas, potentially neatly synergising with Louis’s.

A revised version of my paper “a note on relativistic rocketry” has recently been accepted for publication in Acta Astronautica. One of the anonymous reviewers pointed out that the method proposed in my original preprint – about using thermalized gammas – had serious flaws. It was therefore removed from the final draft and will not appear in the publication.