Until now, nobody has used in-space rocket refueling so many ask why is it needed now?
Some presume in-space refueling is needed just because the Starship is not big enough to carry enough fuel to get beyond LEO - a faulty design. This is true, but not as a faulty design, but on purpose. It is designed this way so that it can increase its max payload to LEO.
(Image: SpaceX)
The design of Starship includes the understanding that long haul trips, just like on earth, require refueling. Therefore, build for that architecture and put the infrastructure in place to help develop it.
This greatly increases the opportunities of what can be achieved.
Many once said that electric cars would never work because there was nowhere to recharge them. Others said that there can be so we will make it happen - and now there is.
Space refueling infrastructure is the same. It isn't there yet, but it needs to be, and SpaceX is the first to start to make this happen.
Setting up such infrastructure in space is no small task. There is a big investment in something unproven. However, based on examples from Earth, infrastructure with a purpose helps create opportunity - like traveling further.
In the future, the infrastructure will include off-Earth production. Probably first on Mars and then other locations like asteroids or the Moon.
Current plans are a first step, so when seen as part of a bigger, more developed infrastructure, it is only logical that it will happen, and soon.
Maybe Dwight D. Eisenhower had space in mind also when he said "The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice! The interstate highway system will be a giant step forward in making America strong and keeping America free."
The next article will explore how SpaceX plans to start developing in-space refueling to enable their Moon and Mars missions.
