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Inspiration 4, the private mission scheduled to launch next week, will be the furthest a manned mission has gone from earth since the last space shuttle Hubble

• avmich 5y ago
  > To visit L2 you basically need a a vehicle and rocket capable of performing a moon mission which hasn't been available since 1972. You don't need to land on anything - and that's a quite large delta-V saving, about 5 km/s for Apollo-style missions. So you save on mass, and you can spend savings elsewhere.
  • shirro 5y ago
    NASA keep calling SLS block 1 a moon rocket and it can't land anything on the moon either. All it can do is transfer crew to a halo orbit and back. And Orion clearly isn't a very capable vehicle for satellite refurbishing. Without an airlock EVAs would require depressurising the whole vehicle and it can't carry any big payloads or a robotic arm. My guess is after mass is added for all the capabilities shuttle had for spacecraft servicing you probably do need a real moon rocket.
• interestica 5y ago
  > which hasn't been available since 1972. I mean, technically they were available after '72. There were a couple Saturn V's and Command/Service Modules (and at least one Lunar Module) left over (and mostly repurposed). It would be interesting to know when the last time the hardware existed in working order that would have allowed a lunar mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canceled_Apollo_missions#Cancellations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canceled_Apollo_missions#Cance...