Maybe this will motivate us to finally design and launch a probe that launches in two or more launches, all but one of which are fuel.
All our normal expectations for probe arrival times and such are based on one-shot launches, straight out of Earth's gravity well into escape velocity in one shot. It's not like launching with fuel suddenly makes it a two-day trip or anything, but it can do quite a bit of shortening and allow for quite a lot more maneuvering.
This is one of the next touchstones in space progress I've been looking for. A lot of previously impractical things become practical if we can routinely do multilaunches.
All our normal expectations for probe arrival times and such are based on one-shot launches, straight out of Earth's gravity well into escape velocity in one shot. It's not like launching with fuel suddenly makes it a two-day trip or anything, but it can do quite a bit of shortening and allow for quite a lot more maneuvering.
This is one of the next touchstones in space progress I've been looking for. A lot of previously impractical things become practical if we can routinely do multilaunches.