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Old November 28th 17, 12:23 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Default NASA is teaming up with Russia to put a new space station near the moon. Here's why.

In article ,
says...

On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 2:28:06 PM UTC-4, wrote:
"At the International Aeronautics Congress in Adelaide, Australia, representatives
of NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced that they had signed an
agreement to work together on venturing into deep space, with the first conceptual
goal being a deep space gateway. In plain language, that means we're building a
space station somewhere near the moon.

Building on the success of the International Space Station, the plan is to build
something that could act as a waypoint for trips to the lunar surface, or even to
more distant locales like Mars. And the hope is that it could be built as soon as
the 2020?s."

See:

https://www.popsci.com/nasa-russia-moon-space-station


Considering all the problems we've had with building and maintaining an earth-
orbiting space station, how likely is this to succeed?


I would try to place a small asteroid in orbit around the moon.
Mine it, and leave a cavity with a single pressure wall with
an airlock.


Lunar orbit is terrible for this because lunar orbits are unstable due
to the non-uniform mass of the moon. And once it's mined, you have to
dispose of the waste. Just letting it impact the moon in an
uncontrolled fashion seems ham fisted at best.

The cost in fuel and launches would be what?

The longer it takes to get the asteroid captured the lower
the fuel cost.


Then why not mine the thing "in place" and bring back only what's
commercially valuable?

Just make the selection the right diameter. About 50 yards.
Dropping this on Earth by mistake would not be catastrophic.


It would be catastrophic for the location that was hit.

Jeff
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