I was watching a video of a Saturn 5 Rocket launch and I was amazed at how much fuel was used and how massive the explosion at the beginning was (and how massive the continuous fuel burn was).
But it got me thinking can we, in the future, develop rockets which can lift more payload per gallon of fuel or are all of our rockets equally efficient in terms of the rocketry version of “Miles per Gallon” because of some law of physics which we already mastered?
And I know there are alternatives like Space Elevators, but I’m specifically curious about rockets.
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The #1 way to increase efficiency with space flight would be through increased specialization – if you have one craft that only takes you up into orbit or back down from orbit, and then a second craft constructed in orbit that never enters atmosphere, the first and especially the second craft can be built a bajillion miles more efficiently because if it’s always in a vacuum and always in microgravity it doesn’t have to deal with gravitational or atmospheric forces working against it structurally, the propulsion system can be purpose built to operate in vacuum & not have to be able to work in atmosphere (it’s not a totally hard rule, but *generally* the better a system functions in atmo, the less efficient it is in space, and vice versa) it doesn’t have to deal with packaging things to fit into the form of a rocket, shielding for reentry, aerodynamic elements etc.
which means significantly less dry weight and total freedom in what kind of propulsion system is used – you could have a mostly unshielded thermonuclear rocket/reactor mounted on 200 meters of carbon fiber girder to separate it from the crew/pax compartments, stuff like that
with something like that, the fuel wouldn’t be the limiting factor for reaching anything in our solar system in a timely manner, it’d be how much heat is generated and how you got rid of it
the doors open up really wide when the spaceship never has to take off or land – as long as they still do, it’s a big bottleneck for everything design-wise on both ends – the model of starship with the detatching atmo-launch booster base and orbital refueling capabilities is the first step in that direction, the next step is having a launched vessel be able to stay up there indefinitely, and then after that, having it be assembled up there to begin with
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