
Some NASA contractors appear to be trying to kill the Lunar Gateway - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/some-nasa-contractors-appear-to-be-trying-to-kill-the-lunar-gateway/
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superkuh
Good. The lunar gateway has absolutely no purpose now that that asteroid
retrieval mission (ARM) funding picks by NASA ignored all the de-spin
proposals. Without the ability to de-spin the number of accessible near earth
asteroids (NEA) to tow back to the lunar gateway numbers, literally, 3. It
would be a huge waste of time and money to implement a lunar gateway that
doesn't have the ability to gather resources.

Going to the moon's surface and back _for fuel resources_ is currently
infeasible due to the large delta-V required and lack of atmosphere to
aerobrake against.

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Sir_Cmpwn
It only takes 1.87 km/s to get from the moon's surface to LLO, and there's
fuel and science and real estate at the bottom. The delta-V budget of, say,
LLO to the nearest Earth-Moon Lagrangian point is about 1 km/s. So yeah, it's
more expensive to go to the lunar surface, but it's not outrageous and there
might be other benefits to round-trips to the surface.

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avmich
In addition to orbital velocity (~1.7 km/s) and gravity losses (~0.2 km/s?)
you should take into account all safety reserves - Eagle could hang a minute
or more above the surface selecting the place to land. Given that we can't
ignore safety, it's better to budget 2200-2500 m/s delta-V to get from the
Moon orbit to the Moon surface.

We need both Lagrange point stations and surface bases. It's arguable what
should go first; an argument for Lagrange station is that it's easier to
build.

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manicdee
By the time we are collecting fuel from the lunar surface there will be well
marked solid landing pads and no need for thirty seconds of reserve fuel to
scoot over to a new landing site.

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sizzzzlerz
This has all the makings of a political clusterfuck and/or disaster instead of
a unified approach to the solution of a difficult problem. Parties are sniping
at one another through their congresscritters to maximize their piece of the
pie regardless of what makes scientific and engineering sense. At the end,
this program will either be canceled due to the exorbitant costs incurred or
we're going to experience a massive failure on par with the Challenger
disaster where the pre-mature launch was caused by corporate and political
pressure.

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tomatotomato37
There is a reason the SLS was and still is known as the "Senate Launch System"

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avmich
NASA does many things wrong, but relying on private contractors for launch
services isn't one of those things and deemphasizing the Senate Launch System
is a step into right direction.

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navaati
Wooooaaaaw, I wasn't aware of this "Lunar Gateway" stuff. That's a great idea
for Kerbal Space Program, I'm going to do that _right now_ !

A Kerbal living there permanently, being able to regularly go up and down the
Mun. A huge fuel tank, to refuel the lander and ships en-route to the deep
solar system. Resupply and refueling missions from Kerbin. Long-running swap-
able science modules. The whole deal. Gonna be great.

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avmich
> Resupply and refueling missions from Kerbin.

Remember, for LOX-kerosene fuel LOX mass is about 2/3 of the total fuel mass.
LOX can be extracted from Moon rocks, a lot of them contain metal oxides, so
refueling from Mun in KSP could be practical.

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ncmncm
Does Mun have ice at its poles?

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avmich
You don't need ice to get oxygen; don't know if Mun has ice.

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ncmncm
Prob'ly need it for H2, though.

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ncmncm
Sounds like they could have all the pieces of a moon mission lofted to LEO
commercially years before they will be ready to start testing their own upper
stage, and for less money than they will spend on the first test.

Somebody should be indicted. What is the FBI busy with, lately?

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perlpimp
Efficiencies of private businesses will lay bare backwards politicized revenue
streams to 'derelicts' of bygone era likes of SLS.

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ptah
the article seem to state that they are making things inefficient through
lobbying to get a bigger piece of the pie i.e. greater cost

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TeMPOraL
I don't get where people get this "efficiencies of private businesses" from.
Private businesses are only efficient at making money, and making their (or
everyone else's) _work_ inefficient is a tried and true way of achieving that.
All the evil cost-plus contracts that were popular in aerospace before SpaceX
came? Well, there's a private business at the other end of each such contract,
and that private business made the whole thing inefficient because that's how
they could get more money.

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davidhyde
Looks like Boeing is headed for another PR disaster with their NASA lobbying
efforts.

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jrockway
They will just make the entire structure out of angle of attack sensors. It
will be fine.

