Editing Openai/691a2d9f-c044-8012-bccf-942bfce6334d (section)

==== If we keep it as grounded sci-fi: ====
# Inside Solar System / origin system - Yes, you can peel off a huge depot section and put it on a long-period orbit. - It becomes a returnable “comet station”: other missions can visit when it comes back around. - This matches your “they don’t have to die, they can come back on the remaining supplies” pattern: ships go out, seed, return.
# Inside destination system (Alpha Cen) - Once you arrive and have infrastructure, you can do the same: - detach hulks into long orbits around Alpha Cen A/B; - those become local comet-like depots.
# Across the interstellar gulf - You cannot rely on passive comets “circling” in empty space. - Any depot in mid-gap must be: - either a one-way dead drop (you fire it along the same corridor and it drifts forever), or - an actively propelled logistics craft (a slow, heavy cycler ship).

So the clean, honest answer:

: 

If you want, next step we can sketch a two-component architecture:
* Core ark (straight-ish interstellar trajectory)
* Bound “comet depot” in the origin system that supports multiple waves of outbound missions and maybe one last refuel of the ark as it exits the Sun’s reach.