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> Now this is pure speculation but they are not maybe working towards doing away with the gateway and going directly to the moon instead? You don't assume the

by avmich 6y ago

> Now this is pure speculation but they are not maybe working towards doing away with the gateway and going directly to the moon instead? You don't assume the humanity doesn't need a Moon orbiting outpost, do you? Insisting that all materials and devices have to go to Moon or Earth with no intermediate point sounds, shall I say, interesting.

bryanlarsen 6y ago
Spacecraft can dock with other spacecraft, they don't need a station to facilitate that. It's especially nonsensical now that Starship was chosen, since Starship is much larger than Gateway.
- NotSammyHagar 6y ago
  Gateway could have coasted out in space for years though, like the the existing space station. starship won't be able to sit there forever. But that's an interesting point in general, will the starship 'habitable space' be bigger than gateway?
  - _Microft 6y ago
    Starship is huge, it is supposed to have up to 1000m³ of pressurized volume. That would be 10% more than the ISS currently has. Gateway should have at least 125m³ from what I saw on its Wikipedia page.
    - avmich 6y ago
      A good Moon base should for sure be bigger than an orbital outpost; unless we have an awful lot of traffic there, on the orbit around the Moon... but we're not there yet. However, to completely avoid having a Moon orbiting facility would be to err to the other direction. Suppose, for example, you have an emergency on the Moon. If you need to fly to Earth, it's easier to meet an Earth-bound ship in the Moon orbit than to have that ship landed on Moon; reminding, SpaceX lunar ship isn't intended to fly to Earth, with good reasons. Or if you need an urgent delivery of something unique from the Earth, it's easier to deliver to the Moon orbiting outpost, rather than to have it with Moon landing capabilities. If you need delivery of materials from the Moon, a convenient place is to accumulate them in orbit; Earth's history of sea shipments suggests that. Of course there could be other reasons. Size of Starship doesn't really matter - Gateway could be smaller, and still quite useful.
      - bryanlarsen 6y ago
        Gateway will be almost completely useless for this. Gateway is in a very odd orbit, a near rectilinear halo orbit. that NRHO spends most of its time a massive distance from the moon. Most of the time the Earth is closer to the moon than the gateway is. You can make a good argument for having a station in low lunar orbit, but NRHO is really silly. It was only chosen because it's all the Senate boondoggle SLS could reach. Edit: NRHO is only close to the moon once every 7 days, versus a low lunar orbit which orbits the moon in 2 hours.
        GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
        It’s not about distance, it’s about deltaV necessary to get to it
        bryanlarsen 6y ago
        Distance correlates to time, which matters in an emergency.
    - skissane 6y ago
      Maybe they could use a Starship as an additional module for Gateway or the ISS? Just dock it to one of the ports and leave it there permanently. Maybe even send up a special one with some extra docking ports on it. You could even convert the fuel tanks into extra cabin space (the classic "wet workshop" space station design).
      - _Microft 6y ago
        Someone rendered Starships docked to the Gateway and a Twitter user reponded that it looks like the Gateway was a docking adapter between them. https://twitter.com/FoxViking1/status/1383381257812283395 https://twitter.com/FoxViking1/status/1383381257812283395
KineticLensman 6y ago
> Insisting that all materials and devices have to go to Moon or Earth with no intermediate point sounds, shall I say, interesting. Apollo did quite well without an intermediate point.
- avmich 6y ago
  > Apollo did quite well without an intermediate point. Not particularly relevant. At the JFK planning moment, there were no plans, and hardly means, to fly to the Moon to stay. Different from what we have now. Today, "just" repeating "the small step" would be quite anticlimactic.

by avmich 6y ago

bryanlarsen 6y ago

Spacecraft can dock with other spacecraft, they don't need a station to facilitate that. It's especially nonsensical now that Starship was chosen, since Starship is much larger than Gateway.

NotSammyHagar 6y ago
Gateway could have coasted out in space for years though, like the the existing space station. starship won't be able to sit there forever. But that's an interesting point in general, will the starship 'habitable space' be bigger than gateway?
- _Microft 6y ago
  Starship is huge, it is supposed to have up to 1000m³ of pressurized volume. That would be 10% more than the ISS currently has. Gateway should have at least 125m³ from what I saw on its Wikipedia page.
  - avmich 6y ago
    A good Moon base should for sure be bigger than an orbital outpost; unless we have an awful lot of traffic there, on the orbit around the Moon... but we're not there yet. However, to completely avoid having a Moon orbiting facility would be to err to the other direction. Suppose, for example, you have an emergency on the Moon. If you need to fly to Earth, it's easier to meet an Earth-bound ship in the Moon orbit than to have that ship landed on Moon; reminding, SpaceX lunar ship isn't intended to fly to Earth, with good reasons. Or if you need an urgent delivery of something unique from the Earth, it's easier to deliver to the Moon orbiting outpost, rather than to have it with Moon landing capabilities. If you need delivery of materials from the Moon, a convenient place is to accumulate them in orbit; Earth's history of sea shipments suggests that. Of course there could be other reasons. Size of Starship doesn't really matter - Gateway could be smaller, and still quite useful.
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      Gateway will be almost completely useless for this. Gateway is in a very odd orbit, a near rectilinear halo orbit. that NRHO spends most of its time a massive distance from the moon. Most of the time the Earth is closer to the moon than the gateway is. You can make a good argument for having a station in low lunar orbit, but NRHO is really silly. It was only chosen because it's all the Senate boondoggle SLS could reach. Edit: NRHO is only close to the moon once every 7 days, versus a low lunar orbit which orbits the moon in 2 hours.
      - GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
        It’s not about distance, it’s about deltaV necessary to get to it
        bryanlarsen 6y ago
        Distance correlates to time, which matters in an emergency.
  - skissane 6y ago
    Maybe they could use a Starship as an additional module for Gateway or the ISS? Just dock it to one of the ports and leave it there permanently. Maybe even send up a special one with some extra docking ports on it. You could even convert the fuel tanks into extra cabin space (the classic "wet workshop" space station design).
    - _Microft 6y ago
      Someone rendered Starships docked to the Gateway and a Twitter user reponded that it looks like the Gateway was a docking adapter between them. https://twitter.com/FoxViking1/status/1383381257812283395 https://twitter.com/FoxViking1/status/1383381257812283395

KineticLensman 6y ago

> Insisting that all materials and devices have to go to Moon or Earth with no intermediate point sounds, shall I say, interesting. Apollo did quite well without an intermediate point.

avmich 6y ago
> Apollo did quite well without an intermediate point. Not particularly relevant. At the JFK planning moment, there were no plans, and hardly means, to fly to the Moon to stay. Different from what we have now. Today, "just" repeating "the small step" would be quite anticlimactic.