Amateur Space Commentaries by Jesse

Is the Lunar Gateway really the key to returning to the Moon to stay, as NASA claims? What, if any, utility is offered by another space station, this time around the Moon instead? Lunar Orbital Platform - Gateway ( src ) The LOP-G aka Lunar Gateway aka Deep Space Gateway has definitely been controversial. NASA touts it as a means of making human return to the Moon sustainable , and to make it an international endeavor, to do more than plant flags and footprints on the surface. But how? What NASA Says NASA calls it a spaceship , rather than a space station. In the picture above, the foil-covered cube at the right with the solar panels on it is the Propulsion Module, using solar electric propulsion to move the whole thing. The idea is that this leads into what used to be called the Deep Space Transport, a similar version designed to actually carry astronauts to Mars in about 9 months. However, this one will probably just stay around the Moon and move only a little bit. It's m...

There's been a lot of excitement lately in the space industry, and specifically in the private sector, about mining in outer space. Although launch prices have been coming down drastically thanks to innovative launch companies like SpaceX, commercial exploitation of space has been held back by high launch costs that have limited space enterprises to highly profitable, unique services such as communications satellites. However, these same dropping launch prices are enabling a wider range of business activities in space, coupled with NASA opening the ISS to business [ link ], and multiple companies seeking to start their own private space stations for business opportunities (i.e. Axiom Space, Bigelow Aerospace). Looming business prospects in low Earth orbit will require basic resources such as oxygen, water, and propellant, as well as raw materials for orbital industries. Additive manufacturing has already been demonstrated in space, and has the potential to create extremely high q...