short; less than two years. This seems a good investment, but if reusable space transportation systems are in use at this base scale, the cost savings introduced through lunar oxygen are not great because the fleet is not fully utilized. Use of lunar oxygen reduces fleet operations cost but does not significantly reduce fleet investment cost. The estimated savings in space transportation logistics cost, from Woodcock (1986), is about $200 million annually. This level of savings makes the investment of marginal value. As the base grows, of course, the savings become greater. Greater benefit by far would be obtained by manufacturing base facilities from
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