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Old October 1st 17, 01:52 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default NASA is teaming up with Russia to put a new space station near the moon. Here's why.

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...

On 29/09/2017 4:28 AM, 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?


More likely, NASA are trying to justify their continued involvement in
manned spaceflight.


More like they're trying to find a use for SLS/Orion that doesn't
require them to go back to Congress and ask for tens of billions more in
funding for each year. Since Asteroid Retrieval Mission was shot down
(because it was stupid to bring the asteroid to high earth orbit where
Orion could reach it), NASA has been looking for something, anything, to
replace it with.

In my opinion, the Deep Space Gateway, as currently envisioned (likely a
high lunar orbit or something similar), is "weak sauce" without a lunar
lander.


Not only that, but if Musk actually gets BFR flying in the next five
years it's rather pointless. With an orbital refueling, BFR could land
dozens of people on the Moon and bring them all home. For $128
million BFR would put more people on the Moon in one shot than the
entire Apollo program (and by a lot). Bring home a ton of samples
(literally).

Note that Musk figures that in the next few years SpaceX will capture
half of the entire satellite launch business. In the face of that and
BFR, NASA's 'lunar orbiting space station' makes even less sense (and
it made very little in the first place - what's it for, exactly?).

I loved the illustration Musk showed of a BFR spaceship docked to ISS.
Given that the BFR spacecraft can carry 100 people in cabins with
supplies for 3-6 months, what the hell would you need ISS for once
it's flying?


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw