Posted on 04/20/2018 7:44:04 PM PDT by BenLurkin
On Thursday, April 19, a representative from NASA announced the space agency's plans during the Space Symposium conference. NASA is now in the process of selecting a contractor to build a spacecraft called the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway. The federal agency is likely to concentrate on making elements that would help power the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway next year.
NASA would be following up on building the habitual components of the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway with hopes that it would be able to launch to the moon around 2022. NASA officials also hope that the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway would be fully orbital by 2025.
Once the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway is completed, the gateway will transform into a go-between platform that will bridge the astronauts between the moon and deep space. A team of four astronauts will be allowed to inhabit the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway at a time.
NASA believes that the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway would enable astronauts to accomplish their missions within a 30-day period. Several tasks that the astronauts might tackle include exploring deep space and potential missions which could be either on the moon or within the astronomical object's vicinity.
(Excerpt) Read more at techtimes.com ...
I hope it’s not another convertible.
“There are no Muslims on the moon.”
I would be happy to put all of them on the moon.
That policy has changed since the Moslem-in-chief was removed from office.
The days of the $700 billion space program are over. Free Enterprise has taught it can be done on the cheap.
Thanks BenLurkin. NASA's picking a contractor? For a spacecraft for 2019? Gosh, the suspense will be killin' us until then. Will it be the ever-more-economical SpaceX, or will it be the ever-more-pork-barrelly legacy companies favored by an Alabama Senator who has the final word?
Whoops, Thanks fieldmarshaldj. [blush]
Skylab was the kind of thing it would have been worth raising merely because it’s a lot of “stuff” up out of the bottom of the well.
One day someone will make dough collecting the orbiting junk up there and opening “Cletus’ used spacecraft parts and scrap”. The process will probably move a lot faster once we get a brewery at a Lagrange point...
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