And, by the way, is anything in range of 25 tonnes payload is supposed to be called a Lunar rocket?..
An interesting image, why the large anular structure, and the small engine bell?
N.
I think they're radiators.BTW, its (her?) solar arrays look a bit undersized anyway.
The engine bell size should be standard for RD-180 engine, however, I'm not sure which structure you are curoius about. Don't forget, that's not an official image, but rather a speculation over known specs.
The part between the engine bell, and the arrays/radiators. Could be fuel tamks?
N.
Detachable? Is it added in Earth orbit before Lunar insertion?
N.
If at all, we are going to see the USA returning to the Moon until the mid 2020's. It's the only agency which is seriously going to do so.
Don't forget ESA. While ESA are "just" the second biggest spaceflight agency in the world, and usually suffering from lack of initiative, I think honestly, that ESA could do it too. We have all that is needed - except the will to really do it.
Still, we currently only have 30% of the NASA budget. If just concentrating on the spaceflight part of the NASA budget, it should be possible for Europe to exceed the funding. If the will would be there.
But anyway, I'm in favour for an international alliance of space agencies to go to the Moon and Mars manned in a big and reliable project, almost like we work on the ISS. What I see at the moment is that manned Moon and Mars proposals obviously are way too big to be done just by one nation. Constellation might find almost the same end Apollo did, once again with no single step towards Mars and a cut Moon program after just a few missions...
An interesting image, why the large anular structure, and the small engine bell?
N.