I have to say I’m skeptical about another space station project. ISS has for decades sucked up the massive budget that could have gone to human deep space exploration. An L1 space station could very easily end up doing the same thing. Eventually an L1 station is a must but why postpone all moon and Mars missions in the near term? We don’t need every step to be a baby step.

Amazing that we did it all. It was more politics than science. Only one geologist went to the moon.

And for the guys who actually have to do the job and take the risks…well…they need the work, don’t they? They’re not going to complain..

We should actually try to build a centripetal structure like we’ve grown up dreaming of. Can it actually be done? Zero G is just not good for humans long term.

The engineering challenges are huge. How would it be constructed? how do you build it? How do you start it spinning? Modular, of course, but remove one module for replacement and the whole thing goes out of balance. How do you dock with it? At the hub, sure, but how? You’d have to have the docking craft match the angular motion or have a rotating port.

Yes. Recon the moon. Prospect. Temporary habitation. Robots. Experiments.

Just let’s get out of low earth orbit if we are going to move forward on this whole space living idea.

I would prefer that whatever forward base we do establish in the solar system will be available indefinitely for other projects and expeditions. IOW, it should be a facility that can be updated and expanded for staging future exploration programs. Of course, no one can say for sure if there are or are not valuable resources on the moon that would make a permanent base there useful. But the same can be said for any place in the solar system. Do we really want to start an expensive prospecting program in such a hard to get to place?

I would suggest a recon stop to establish whether or not ice can be found there to determine whether mining it for fuel and oxidizer is practical. Remember, even if it can be proven that there are vast pockets of water ice in those polar shadows, will it be practical to collect it, purify it, ionize and cryogenically store it for future use? This would involve transporting and operating a nuclear or solar powered refinery and storage facility to the lunar surface, and to supply (and relieve a crew) to man it.

I would rather see the same effort put into establishing a permanent space station at one of the Lagrangian points where fleets of heavy-payload ships could be assembled and fitted for missions to Mars, the Belt, or even the outer solar system. There are plenty of moon-sized worlds orbiting the gas giants, not to mention lots of water ice floating in free fall, ripe for the harvesting…

To partially compensate for this, they’ll put up a lunar orbiting station, so maneuvering and communication is partially simplified. But this now means we have TWO bases which will need support and maintenance, and twice as many things which can go wrong. An emergency on the orbiter not only threatens that facility, it immediately isolates the crew down on the ground.

What we really need is another ISS, in an orbit on the ecliptic optimized for launching planetary missions, and a facility designed as a spaceport, for assembling large spacecraft from smaller components, and staging multi-ship missions. A base at one on the Lagrangian points might be even better.

NASA has a penchant for very competently executing the wrong mission. Apollo, ISS, the Shuttle all proved to be expensive mistakes. Besides, he moon just isn’t on the way to anywhere else.

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