Private Enterprise- To mars

  Well, then maybe this idea should be presented to a promising researcher, and not to NASA?  There are some good ideas here, even if they're from a carpenter, a musician, and (okay Qoais... I'm not going to pigeon-hole you, because you are quite versitile), and the rest of the contributers in this thread. 

I myself am a would be writer, and novelist, (still trying to sell my novel).  A personal here of mine is, Jules Verne.  Although he never invented anything, his fictional stories inspired the scientists of later days.  The first step of any technological progress is in the belief that it could be done, and it would be beneficial to mankind if it were done.  If Verne hadn't planted the thought in peoples minds that a trip to the moon was possible, perhaps we never would have suceeded in going there.  His story made it seem real and possible.  And so although I am not in the position to implement anything along the lines of a space station, (and perhaps none of us here are), we are all in the position of writing about one.  Which is exactly what we have already done. 

So perhaps the next step is to put it in the form of a story.  Or at least put it in the form of a magazine article which could be published and read by scientists who could do something about implementing it. 

My voice teacher taught me this addage; "Follow through on your ideas, or you will read about them in the newspaper".