Got home from seeing my blood doctor a while age and found my dogs watching a science show about NASA's plans for sending people to Mars. Seems that they may be stuck on the idea of a surface launch. Now, I know and many other people know that assembling and launching a spacecraft from a high earth orbit will save a huge amount of fuel. Sure, it will take a lot of fuel to shuttle the parts and assemblers out to put the thing together, but they aren't going to be far from the filling station back in town. Leaving from high earth orbit will save almost enough fuel for the return trip.
