what you mean by "indirect sunlight"
Will the design shown in the image even work? From what I gather the water is trapped in parts of craters which are permanently in shadows. So photovoltaics won't power that thing.
"'There have been studies that have shown you can reduce the mass of a mission to Mars by a factor of somewhere between three and five if you get propellants from the space environment rather than launching them all from Earth,' Metzger said."
Editors, this statement is false. Good reporting will correct erroneous assertions from subject-matter experts.
The mass of a mission to Mars won't be affected by where the propellants come from. What will be affected is the lift mass coming out of Earth's gravity well.
Depends on how you define mission mass. I'd interpret it to mean Gross Lift Off Weight (GLOW) from earth's surface
ckid
Nov 18, 2012