I have been busy with SBIR proposals, but will soon get back to the Moon Base One plan and other topics.

One note: for near term history, the next human who achieves an altitude significantly above the 559 km of the Hubble Space Telescope (well above the 350 km altitude of the ISS) will earn bragging rights in this century. An altitude of 1000 km will certainly qualify as “Above LEO”. For example “The First Woman to fly Above LEO”. That appears to require less than 300 meters per second as one burn from LEO. This could be accomplished with a 10% fuel mass burn – using storable fuels – and accomplished as part of the first human test of a lightweight reentry system. That burn could either lower the subsequent perigee altitude (producing reentry ½ orbit after apogee), or could produce a sustained elliptical orbit with several high altitude passes before a reentry burn.

The Van Allen radiation during these short transits would be in the modest dose range seen by Apollo Astronauts – about equal to a chest x-ray. (Note that OSHA/NASA standards don't allow that kind of occupational exposure very often. Radiation for Cancer treatment exceeds even the radiation exposure for a slow Mars trip!)

Only 200 kg for the basic reentry system, with 20 to 30 kg added to become the first human this century to fly above LEO – or the first woman ever to do so!