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Does this mean that the Lunar Gateway project will be scrapped? https://www.nasa.gov/gateway https://www.nasa.gov/gateway

wmf 5y ago
The current official plan is for Starship to take astronauts from the Gateway to the surface of the moon and back. That plan is ridiculously complex and expensive when you could skip the Gateway and ride Starship all the way to the moon instead. At some point Starship will be ready and SLS and the Gateway will still not be ready and then NASA can decide to bypass the bullshit.
- rblatz 5y ago
  That was my take on this too. NASA is buying themselves a backup plan for further SLS delays.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  I can't believe that I'm understanding this correctly? Just to be sure: NASA's plan is to fly the insanely expensive hasn't even launched into space yet SLS, onto some non-existing docking station, then SpaceX fly to the moon. Repeat back (does Starship have to dock again why can't it just go straight back into earth)? While Starship can go to from earth to moon with a refueling stop alone? Even if sticking to the space dock why not the WAYYYY cheaper Dragon which just worked today (using a recycled rocket)?
  - syoc 5y ago
    I am way out of my comfort zone discussing this, but I really like the idea of building oribiting infrastructure. Not sure why they are not using an earth-moon Lagrange point. I agree that it would probably be cheaper and more practical to go directly to the moon with a simpler refuling scheme. I do however also believe that some infrastructure is needed for further space travel and a larger more permanent off-earth presence. Starting new missions from outside a strong gravity field seems like such a huge advantage. I guess most people want a destination and not just a more long term established presence.
    - sneak 5y ago
      I imagine that we'd need hundreds or thousands of people in space to make such a base/fuel depot worth it - IIRC it's less fuel to use a transfer orbit than to go to L4 or L1 and stop on the way. Such a thing might make sense once there are, say, 50 or 100 starships. For the foreseeable future, all missions will "start" in Earth's gravity well due to the fact that the o2 and ch4 are all down here. It will be some years until we have significant fuel stores in space.
    - Armisael16 5y ago
      > Starting new missions from outside a strong gravity field seems like such a huge advantage. You don’t get to do this, period. All your crew and all your materials are ultimately coming from Earth (or, in some plans, are mined in-situ). You use considerably more resources getting to your waypoint than you save by leaving from there. Being farther out of the gravity well isn’t entirely positive either; you’re losing out on significant savings from the Oberth effect. Earth-Moon Lagrange points are well past the minimum-cost orbit.
      - avmich 5y ago
        > All your crew and all your materials are ultimately coming from Earth Wait till we start making LOX (and later, I think, metals) on the Moon from regolith. The process is old and tested on Earth, the missing part is actually experimenting with this on the Moon. And as soon as we have more or less robust Earth-Moon transportation, this will become important, as it will significantly simplify near Moon operations. Do you know NASA runs, right now, competitions for e.g. lunar ice extraction and purifying?
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        > All your crew and all your materials are ultimately coming from Earth This is the key state differentiator. If you bring everything from Earth, it doesn't make sense. (So why are we doing it now?) But once you start procuring resources from outside gravity well, things look different.
        5y ago
  - avmich 5y ago
    > does Starship have to dock again why can't it just go straight back into earth Because Moon-bound Starship will be quite different from Earth-bound - not enough to not call it Starship, but still - the Moon-bound will be optimized for less gravity (different legs?), no atmosphere (no wings), braking using engines in the middle of the body, not in the tail section, Moon-specific systems like ladder or elevator etc.
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      AFAIK lunar Starship still has Raptors in the tail that do most of the burns, the "belt" engines are only used for the final landing phase to reduce the ammount of regolith kicked up by the rocket plumes contact with the surface.
    - dillondoyle 5y ago
      Interesting. So would still do a 'dock' and could come back on a different Starship, Dragon, or SLS it sounds like
  - kimundi 5y ago
    Separating the "get to/from moon" vehicle from the "land on/start from moon) vehicle has indeed been the plan for many years now.
  - lutorm 5y ago
    hasn't even launched into space yet SLS I'm no fan of SLS, but check your terminology here: You're talking about Starship in the present tense, but it hasn't launched _either_, so you can't say it "can" go to the moon etc either. Starship is awesome, but it's an insanely ambitious project. No one knows how long it'll take to get it right.
    - avmich 5y ago
      Raptor engines are, yes, cutting edge. Serious stuff. Starship itself?.. Being built with such technologies, so cheap (Elon mentioned that Boca Chica works are quite small percents of what SpaceX is doing in terms of money), so fast - and yet we already have a successful-ish landing from ~10 km height. Of course, we don't know for sure. But it surely doesn't seem too bad, especially now - and for some it was clear when SpaceX was just created.
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      Well, Starship has definitely reached bigger height than SLS so far (unless you count some of the reused Shuttle engines). ;-) Also considering the planned SLS "landing" mode they are also on par so far.
    - dillondoyle 5y ago
      That's totally 100% fair critique. But SLS is in no way able to go to moon or earth with what they are currently building? What makes this so weird to me is that SpaceX does have Dragon already which just brought more people into orbit this week - e.g. proven and way cheaper of what SLS is supposed to do in this mission - unless I'm missing or not understanding something. So you're right the starship portion to moon (and hopefully mars) is similar to SLS in that it's not realized ye But looking at the part SLS is supposed to play in this production, that role has already been acted successfully by Dragon. I'd say spacex gets the space oscar for it, though i doubt they get the trophy this weekend :)
      - wmf 5y ago
        Orion does have several spec advantages over Crew Dragon such as larger volume and longer endurance. https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-differences-between-the-SpaceX-Dragon-Lockheed-Orion-and-Boeing-CST-100-spacecrafts https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-differences-between-t... Given SpaceX's dramatically faster and cheaper development, it might be possible to deliver an upgraded Crew Dragon Plus (or whatever you want to call it) before Orion is ready.
- DennisP 5y ago
  I thought that was crazy at first but the Orion capsule uses proven reentry tech. SpaceX hasn't landed Starship successfully yet and hasn't proven their reentry strategy, and coming back from the moon will be harder because they'll be coming in faster. I can't blame NASA for not committing their astronauts to it yet. But yeah, I think SpaceX will prove it all works and then NASA has the option to change the plan. In the meantime, officially keeping SLS keeps Congress happy.
  - wmf 5y ago
    Starship can come back from the moon to LEO then the crew transfers into a Crew Dragon and lands.
    - cwkoss 5y ago
      Yeah, once you have a large ship out of earths gravity well, would be a waste to land it back on earth. Heck, even if it breaks, park it in a stable orbit so the next generation can salvage it for parts as needed.
      - m4rtink 5y ago
        PSA: Most orbits around Moon are not long term stable due to underground mass concentrations.
        cwkoss 5y ago
        Neat! If you park a satellite at moon geosychronous orbit how unstable is it? Would it be lost in the order of months or decades? Does that also effect the Lagrange points for the moon? Do human currently have anything parked at earth moon lagrange points?
        perl4ever 5y ago
        There appears to be no such thing. "the radius for a selenostationary orbit is much farther than the Hill radius, meaning that no stable orbit can be achieved as it would be too much perturbed by the Earth and/or the Sun" "all of the Lagrangian points of the Earth-Moon system are stationary relative to the Moon surface" ...but then it is explained that stationary doesn't mean stable. Links: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/20499/is-it-possible-to-achieve-a-stable-lunarstationary-orbit-around-the-moon https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/20499/is-it-po... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere
- whatiknow2 5y ago
  Sounds a lot like Gateway is Kubernetes the space version..
- mlindner 5y ago
  The gateway is where international partners are currently hooked in. If NASA is to cancel the Gateway without absolutely destroying it's relationship with international partners, it would need a replacement mission (say Moon surface modules) to make up for it.
- skissane 5y ago
  > The current official plan is for Starship to take astronauts from the Gateway to the surface of the moon and back. Even before announcing the choice of Starship for HLS, NASA was already talking about bypassing Gateway for the first crewed lunar landing (Artemis III) and only visiting it on later missions – https://spacenews.com/nasa-takes-gateway-off-the-critical-path-for-2024-lunar-return/ https://spacenews.com/nasa-takes-gateway-off-the-critical-pa... They haven't completely decided yet though. They don't know when the bits will be ready. If come time for the first crewed landing, SLS+Orion and Starship are ready but Gateway isn't, they'll just do the landing without Gateway. On the other hand, if Gateway is already ready by then, they might consider using it. One advantage Gateway has, is it gives the two astronauts who stay-behind on Orion a bit more room. It would also give them something to do – testing out Gateway systems.
- jandrese 5y ago
  I don't think the Lunar gateway is so useful for people going to/from the moon, but for future trips to Mars and back. Having a place to stop and refuel would greatly reduce the size of rocket you need to launch from Earth. The choice of having it in Earth orbit vs. Lunar orbit comes with some tradeoffs. It may make more sense to leave it in Earth orbit, but ultimately having it at all substantially changes the calculus on a Mars trip.
  - avhon1 5y ago
    Unless the fuel is being produced on the Moon, it would be more efficient for Mars-bound spaceships to fuel up in LEO. All Earth-departing mass has to pass through LEO, so it's simpler to rendezvous there rather than enter, and then leave, Lunar orbit. If launches are cheap, then refueling in LEO makes a lot of sense. Historically, this has not been the case at all, but it's all part of SpaceX's model for Starship.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Lunar gravity is actually weak enough to make a space elevator from conventional materials possible. Even Kevlar would suffice. If fuel for interplanetary missions is produced on the Moon, a space elevator would make a huge sense for refueling of the ships.
    - jandrese 5y ago
      Doesn't the moon rotate too slowly to make a space elevator work? IIRC you can't take up a ground-stationary orbit around the Moon because the Earth would constantly knock your satellite around with its big gravity well.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        I think this is where the Lagrange points L1 and L2 would help.
      - zardo 5y ago
        You can have a ground stationary satellite if you tether it to the moon. Though obviously the tether has to deal with that extra load. The best sites for permanent outposts are the poles though, it would be quite a drive from the equator.
medium_burrito 5y ago
Basically, yes. Gateway is smaller, doesn't have two airlocks, etc. If you want to build a station in LLO, just build it from a few starship hulls. Also, the stupid polar orbit around the moon isn't necessary if you have moon starlink (no comm loss on dark side). This saves energy otherwise needed for inclination changes.
- actinium226 5y ago
  > Also, the stupid polar orbit around the moon isn't necessary if you have moon starlink (no comm loss on dark side). This saves energy otherwise needed for inclination changes. What? Gateway is planned to be in a Halo orbit at L1. Getting to the lunar poles is actually cheaper from L1 than directly getting there Apollo style, and the poles are of interest for exploration due to areas of permanent sunlight (for power) and permanent shade (for potential ice). Moon starlink? For comms you just need one or two satellites at L2. The Chinese already have one there. And it's not the dark side, it's the far side. Goram people being wrong on the internet making me correct them grumble grumble.
  - valuearb 5y ago
    Getting to the lunar poles from Earth through Gateway is a diversion that takes more energy than going direct.
  - Armisael16 5y ago
    > What? Gateway is planned to be in a Halo orbit at L1. Can you provide a source for this? I’m not seeing anything that says gateway is ever expected to even get particularly close to L1.
  - T-A 5y ago
    > Gateway is planned to be in a Halo orbit at L1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway#Orbit_and_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway#Orbit_and_operat...
zardo 5y ago
No, it doesn't really change anything about the gateway plan. It was always unnecessary technically, and necessary politically (to support a lunar landing mission).
Diederich 5y ago
It's mentioned in your link, but I'd like to call it out more clearly: NASA has also recently selected SpaceX to be the sole launch provider for the initial Lunar Gateway, and the sole launch provider for resupplying it as well.
unchocked 5y ago
The lunar tollbooth? Hope so. https://spacenews.com/op-ed-lunar-gateway-or-moon-direct/ https://spacenews.com/op-ed-lunar-gateway-or-moon-direct/

wmf 5y ago

The current official plan is for Starship to take astronauts from the Gateway to the surface of the moon and back. That plan is ridiculously complex and expensive when you could skip the Gateway and ride Starship all the way to the moon instead. At some point Starship will be ready and SLS and the Gateway will still not be ready and then NASA can decide to bypass the bullshit.

rblatz 5y ago
That was my take on this too. NASA is buying themselves a backup plan for further SLS delays.
dillondoyle 5y ago
I can't believe that I'm understanding this correctly? Just to be sure: NASA's plan is to fly the insanely expensive hasn't even launched into space yet SLS, onto some non-existing docking station, then SpaceX fly to the moon. Repeat back (does Starship have to dock again why can't it just go straight back into earth)? While Starship can go to from earth to moon with a refueling stop alone? Even if sticking to the space dock why not the WAYYYY cheaper Dragon which just worked today (using a recycled rocket)?
- syoc 5y ago
  I am way out of my comfort zone discussing this, but I really like the idea of building oribiting infrastructure. Not sure why they are not using an earth-moon Lagrange point. I agree that it would probably be cheaper and more practical to go directly to the moon with a simpler refuling scheme. I do however also believe that some infrastructure is needed for further space travel and a larger more permanent off-earth presence. Starting new missions from outside a strong gravity field seems like such a huge advantage. I guess most people want a destination and not just a more long term established presence.
  - sneak 5y ago
    I imagine that we'd need hundreds or thousands of people in space to make such a base/fuel depot worth it - IIRC it's less fuel to use a transfer orbit than to go to L4 or L1 and stop on the way. Such a thing might make sense once there are, say, 50 or 100 starships. For the foreseeable future, all missions will "start" in Earth's gravity well due to the fact that the o2 and ch4 are all down here. It will be some years until we have significant fuel stores in space.
  - Armisael16 5y ago
    > Starting new missions from outside a strong gravity field seems like such a huge advantage. You don’t get to do this, period. All your crew and all your materials are ultimately coming from Earth (or, in some plans, are mined in-situ). You use considerably more resources getting to your waypoint than you save by leaving from there. Being farther out of the gravity well isn’t entirely positive either; you’re losing out on significant savings from the Oberth effect. Earth-Moon Lagrange points are well past the minimum-cost orbit.
    - avmich 5y ago
      > All your crew and all your materials are ultimately coming from Earth Wait till we start making LOX (and later, I think, metals) on the Moon from regolith. The process is old and tested on Earth, the missing part is actually experimenting with this on the Moon. And as soon as we have more or less robust Earth-Moon transportation, this will become important, as it will significantly simplify near Moon operations. Do you know NASA runs, right now, competitions for e.g. lunar ice extraction and purifying?
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      > All your crew and all your materials are ultimately coming from Earth This is the key state differentiator. If you bring everything from Earth, it doesn't make sense. (So why are we doing it now?) But once you start procuring resources from outside gravity well, things look different.
      - 5y ago
- avmich 5y ago
  > does Starship have to dock again why can't it just go straight back into earth Because Moon-bound Starship will be quite different from Earth-bound - not enough to not call it Starship, but still - the Moon-bound will be optimized for less gravity (different legs?), no atmosphere (no wings), braking using engines in the middle of the body, not in the tail section, Moon-specific systems like ladder or elevator etc.
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    AFAIK lunar Starship still has Raptors in the tail that do most of the burns, the "belt" engines are only used for the final landing phase to reduce the ammount of regolith kicked up by the rocket plumes contact with the surface.
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Interesting. So would still do a 'dock' and could come back on a different Starship, Dragon, or SLS it sounds like
- kimundi 5y ago
  Separating the "get to/from moon" vehicle from the "land on/start from moon) vehicle has indeed been the plan for many years now.
- lutorm 5y ago
  hasn't even launched into space yet SLS I'm no fan of SLS, but check your terminology here: You're talking about Starship in the present tense, but it hasn't launched _either_, so you can't say it "can" go to the moon etc either. Starship is awesome, but it's an insanely ambitious project. No one knows how long it'll take to get it right.
  - avmich 5y ago
    Raptor engines are, yes, cutting edge. Serious stuff. Starship itself?.. Being built with such technologies, so cheap (Elon mentioned that Boca Chica works are quite small percents of what SpaceX is doing in terms of money), so fast - and yet we already have a successful-ish landing from ~10 km height. Of course, we don't know for sure. But it surely doesn't seem too bad, especially now - and for some it was clear when SpaceX was just created.
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    Well, Starship has definitely reached bigger height than SLS so far (unless you count some of the reused Shuttle engines). ;-) Also considering the planned SLS "landing" mode they are also on par so far.
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    That's totally 100% fair critique. But SLS is in no way able to go to moon or earth with what they are currently building? What makes this so weird to me is that SpaceX does have Dragon already which just brought more people into orbit this week - e.g. proven and way cheaper of what SLS is supposed to do in this mission - unless I'm missing or not understanding something. So you're right the starship portion to moon (and hopefully mars) is similar to SLS in that it's not realized ye But looking at the part SLS is supposed to play in this production, that role has already been acted successfully by Dragon. I'd say spacex gets the space oscar for it, though i doubt they get the trophy this weekend :)
    - wmf 5y ago
      Orion does have several spec advantages over Crew Dragon such as larger volume and longer endurance. https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-differences-between-the-SpaceX-Dragon-Lockheed-Orion-and-Boeing-CST-100-spacecrafts https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-differences-between-t... Given SpaceX's dramatically faster and cheaper development, it might be possible to deliver an upgraded Crew Dragon Plus (or whatever you want to call it) before Orion is ready.
DennisP 5y ago
I thought that was crazy at first but the Orion capsule uses proven reentry tech. SpaceX hasn't landed Starship successfully yet and hasn't proven their reentry strategy, and coming back from the moon will be harder because they'll be coming in faster. I can't blame NASA for not committing their astronauts to it yet. But yeah, I think SpaceX will prove it all works and then NASA has the option to change the plan. In the meantime, officially keeping SLS keeps Congress happy.
- wmf 5y ago
  Starship can come back from the moon to LEO then the crew transfers into a Crew Dragon and lands.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    Yeah, once you have a large ship out of earths gravity well, would be a waste to land it back on earth. Heck, even if it breaks, park it in a stable orbit so the next generation can salvage it for parts as needed.
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      PSA: Most orbits around Moon are not long term stable due to underground mass concentrations.
      - cwkoss 5y ago
        Neat! If you park a satellite at moon geosychronous orbit how unstable is it? Would it be lost in the order of months or decades? Does that also effect the Lagrange points for the moon? Do human currently have anything parked at earth moon lagrange points?
        perl4ever 5y ago
        There appears to be no such thing. "the radius for a selenostationary orbit is much farther than the Hill radius, meaning that no stable orbit can be achieved as it would be too much perturbed by the Earth and/or the Sun" "all of the Lagrangian points of the Earth-Moon system are stationary relative to the Moon surface" ...but then it is explained that stationary doesn't mean stable. Links: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/20499/is-it-possible-to-achieve-a-stable-lunarstationary-orbit-around-the-moon https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/20499/is-it-po... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere
whatiknow2 5y ago
Sounds a lot like Gateway is Kubernetes the space version..
mlindner 5y ago
The gateway is where international partners are currently hooked in. If NASA is to cancel the Gateway without absolutely destroying it's relationship with international partners, it would need a replacement mission (say Moon surface modules) to make up for it.
skissane 5y ago
> The current official plan is for Starship to take astronauts from the Gateway to the surface of the moon and back. Even before announcing the choice of Starship for HLS, NASA was already talking about bypassing Gateway for the first crewed lunar landing (Artemis III) and only visiting it on later missions – https://spacenews.com/nasa-takes-gateway-off-the-critical-path-for-2024-lunar-return/ https://spacenews.com/nasa-takes-gateway-off-the-critical-pa... They haven't completely decided yet though. They don't know when the bits will be ready. If come time for the first crewed landing, SLS+Orion and Starship are ready but Gateway isn't, they'll just do the landing without Gateway. On the other hand, if Gateway is already ready by then, they might consider using it. One advantage Gateway has, is it gives the two astronauts who stay-behind on Orion a bit more room. It would also give them something to do – testing out Gateway systems.
jandrese 5y ago
I don't think the Lunar gateway is so useful for people going to/from the moon, but for future trips to Mars and back. Having a place to stop and refuel would greatly reduce the size of rocket you need to launch from Earth. The choice of having it in Earth orbit vs. Lunar orbit comes with some tradeoffs. It may make more sense to leave it in Earth orbit, but ultimately having it at all substantially changes the calculus on a Mars trip.
- avhon1 5y ago
  Unless the fuel is being produced on the Moon, it would be more efficient for Mars-bound spaceships to fuel up in LEO. All Earth-departing mass has to pass through LEO, so it's simpler to rendezvous there rather than enter, and then leave, Lunar orbit. If launches are cheap, then refueling in LEO makes a lot of sense. Historically, this has not been the case at all, but it's all part of SpaceX's model for Starship.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Lunar gravity is actually weak enough to make a space elevator from conventional materials possible. Even Kevlar would suffice. If fuel for interplanetary missions is produced on the Moon, a space elevator would make a huge sense for refueling of the ships.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    Doesn't the moon rotate too slowly to make a space elevator work? IIRC you can't take up a ground-stationary orbit around the Moon because the Earth would constantly knock your satellite around with its big gravity well.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      I think this is where the Lagrange points L1 and L2 would help.
    - zardo 5y ago
      You can have a ground stationary satellite if you tether it to the moon. Though obviously the tether has to deal with that extra load. The best sites for permanent outposts are the poles though, it would be quite a drive from the equator.

medium_burrito 5y ago

Basically, yes. Gateway is smaller, doesn't have two airlocks, etc. If you want to build a station in LLO, just build it from a few starship hulls. Also, the stupid polar orbit around the moon isn't necessary if you have moon starlink (no comm loss on dark side). This saves energy otherwise needed for inclination changes.

actinium226 5y ago
> Also, the stupid polar orbit around the moon isn't necessary if you have moon starlink (no comm loss on dark side). This saves energy otherwise needed for inclination changes. What? Gateway is planned to be in a Halo orbit at L1. Getting to the lunar poles is actually cheaper from L1 than directly getting there Apollo style, and the poles are of interest for exploration due to areas of permanent sunlight (for power) and permanent shade (for potential ice). Moon starlink? For comms you just need one or two satellites at L2. The Chinese already have one there. And it's not the dark side, it's the far side. Goram people being wrong on the internet making me correct them grumble grumble.
- valuearb 5y ago
  Getting to the lunar poles from Earth through Gateway is a diversion that takes more energy than going direct.
- Armisael16 5y ago
  > What? Gateway is planned to be in a Halo orbit at L1. Can you provide a source for this? I’m not seeing anything that says gateway is ever expected to even get particularly close to L1.
- T-A 5y ago
  > Gateway is planned to be in a Halo orbit at L1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway#Orbit_and_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway#Orbit_and_operat...

zardo 5y ago

No, it doesn't really change anything about the gateway plan. It was always unnecessary technically, and necessary politically (to support a lunar landing mission).

Diederich 5y ago

It's mentioned in your link, but I'd like to call it out more clearly: NASA has also recently selected SpaceX to be the sole launch provider for the initial Lunar Gateway, and the sole launch provider for resupplying it as well.

unchocked 5y ago

The lunar tollbooth? Hope so. https://spacenews.com/op-ed-lunar-gateway-or-moon-direct/ https://spacenews.com/op-ed-lunar-gateway-or-moon-direct/