ESA signs on the dotted line for ESPRIT, Europe's Lunar Gateway module The European System Providing Refueling, Infrastructure and Telecommunications (ESPRIT) took another step closer to reality this week as the European Space Agency (ESA) inked a €296.5m contract with Thales Alenia Space to build the module for the Lunar Gateway. ESPRIT will consist of two elements. One will deal with voice, …
Ultimately the moon does not make the best business continuity plan for mankind. We know it is a rock, future missions are best directed further afield. Why not set up a gateway at one of the stable Lagrange points L4 or L5 - things can sit there forever and if you want a staging area, shipyard, colony, or whatever these would be much better places to put them.
There's a better place even than L4/L5: LEO. Cheaper to get to and less radiation. If you are going for distributed launch the cheapest part to distribute is propellant because when you get to LEO you already have empty propellant tanks with connectors that used to connect to the ground support equipment already in place to connect to your tanker.
Much of the mass of ISS is all the airlocks needed to connect the modules together. Although you can send a series of modules direct to a high energy orbit it is more cost effective to send one big module that you can only get as far as LEO, refuel and then send it on to where ever you want it.
I think that ultimately there will be business opportunities on the Moon but not this decade. Mass drivers are difficult on Earth because of the atmosphere and Earth is a bit too big for space elevator but both launch/capture methods are much closer to sane for the Moon. Perhaps next decade the Moon will be more reachable but SLS+Orion+LOP-G are certainly not the tools you want to get part way there.
A lunar orbital gateway only makes sense if you've also got a surface base sending up consumables mined from the surface.
An orbital capable coilgun would be "relatively" simple to build on the Moon, but is there actually enough recoverable material to be worth bothering?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
