<story><title>NASA Has Decided to Start Building the Lunar Gateway Using the Falcon Heavy</title><url>https://www.universetoday.com/150124/nasa-has-decided-to-start-building-the-lunar-gateway-using-the-falcon-heavy/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>superkuh</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a shame that the lunar gateway is useless and itself a jobs program like SLS. Since NASA decided not to fund the version of the asteroid retrieval mission (ARM) that included de-spin there are no near earth asteroids that can be brought back to the proposed space station. All it can do is uselessly orbit the Moon, getting full cosmic radiation dose instead of less than half in Earth orbit in the magnetosphere.&lt;p&gt;In terms of resources the moon itself only has water. But it&amp;#x27;s down in a difficult to access gravity well. There&amp;#x27;s no nitrogen. Far, far, better would be fully funding ARM and starting to despin and drag asteroids to the lunar gateway for study, resources, and eventually living space in space protected from radiation and, if you build sub-surface tracks, enough acceleration to live normally.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TrainedMonkey</author><text>Lunar gateway is a first space station that will not be orbiting Earth. While current approach is inefficient, I assure you the challenge of building, launching, and operating such a craft will definitely push overall space capabilities further.</text></comment>
<story><title>NASA Has Decided to Start Building the Lunar Gateway Using the Falcon Heavy</title><url>https://www.universetoday.com/150124/nasa-has-decided-to-start-building-the-lunar-gateway-using-the-falcon-heavy/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>superkuh</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a shame that the lunar gateway is useless and itself a jobs program like SLS. Since NASA decided not to fund the version of the asteroid retrieval mission (ARM) that included de-spin there are no near earth asteroids that can be brought back to the proposed space station. All it can do is uselessly orbit the Moon, getting full cosmic radiation dose instead of less than half in Earth orbit in the magnetosphere.&lt;p&gt;In terms of resources the moon itself only has water. But it&amp;#x27;s down in a difficult to access gravity well. There&amp;#x27;s no nitrogen. Far, far, better would be fully funding ARM and starting to despin and drag asteroids to the lunar gateway for study, resources, and eventually living space in space protected from radiation and, if you build sub-surface tracks, enough acceleration to live normally.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>generalizations</author><text>A simple first step done sooner is better than a complex first step done later.  Also, seems like there&amp;#x27;s a lot to learn about space habitats just by building another one - we haven&amp;#x27;t made that many yet.</text></comment>