Radiation exposure does increase mortality for lunar travellers.

http://observer.com/2016/07/space-ra...lo-astronauts/

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep29901

https://phys.org/news/2013-05-exposu...rney-mars.html

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/tnD7080RadProtect.pdf

The Apollo missions were less than 1 rad generally, and exposure limit was set to 400 rad - which NASA at that time said was equivalent to an x-ray.

How to convert rads, rems, sieverts

http://news.mit.edu/2011/explained-radioactivity-0328

http://buzzaldrin.com/files/pdf/2002...ajectories.pdf

The BE-330 is a 20 ton six passenger space module that can be configured for use as a base or orbiting station. The Falcon Heavy is capable of placing 63.8 MT into LEO and Delta IV Heavy puts 28.8 MT into LEO.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/1...t-37-days.html

http://bigelowaerospace.com/pages/b330/

So, a single Falcon Heavy launch could place a BA-330 into LEO along with another BA-330 with up to 23.8 MT kick stage. Which is sufficient to kick it into a lunar cycler orbit. One that is 27.32158 days divided by 3. Or 9..1071933 days - which brings it to the vicinity of the moon once a month, every three cycles of the station.

A second Falcon Heavy launch could then place a BA-330 into LEO with 43.8 metric ton kick stage. This makes it into LLO with propellant to spare.

A third Falcon Heavy launch then places another BA-330 into LEO with a 43.8 metric ton kick/landing stage. This makes it into LLO next to the other one. A portion of the propellant is transferred from the earlier stage, and the last BA-330 lands on the lunar surface.

Now, we are in place to send a Dragon capsule, with smaller kick stage/landing stage, to the moon and back, using the cycling stations. Carrying 7 passengers at a time, with six passengers living aboard the cycling station and one aboard the capsule.

Another approach is to dispense altogether with the lunar landing BA-330 and instead develop lunar rocket belts that are capable of landing on the moon and returning to orbit. I've written about this possibility here;

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/remem...-william-mook/



On Friday, September 29, 2017 at 7:28:06 AM UTC+13, 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?