…has been taken off the critical path for 2024.
This is probably the beginning of the end for it. Long before 2026, it will have become very clear that the road to the planets lies with the private sector, not NASA.
5 thoughts on “The Gateway”
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The Gateway should be a leased services contract if they want to do it. Bid the damn specification and let industry provide its own solution. We have Bigelow, Sierra Nevada, Axion and SpaceX that could either wholly or in partnership, offer up a workable solution at a much lower cost than the micro-managed gateway done the old way.
I’ve never been able to see any rational (as opposed to political) reasons for Gateway. Its proposed orbit makes it of almost no use for a lunar surface mission, and other than a lunar surface mission, it makes no sense that I can see to put it in lunar space.
I know it’s hard to kill a useless government program, so I was wondering if we could make it cheaper and better instead. First, I suggest changing the orbit to heliocentric and attainable with far less delta/v. The new orbit would allow some cost savings regarding life support and consumables supply. The new Gateway should be in Gateway, Colorado (in far west Colorado.) No need for special hab units (Buy them off the shelf- a large RV would be ideal – and there’s even a working fuel depot nearby.) and last time I checked, SLS/Orion can get there and back (Do a modified abort-once-around for the launch, then Orion would make the return journey by flatbed truck). The new location (a Colorado-synchronous heliocentric orbit) would also be, IMHO, every bit as useful as the currently proposed near rectilinear lunar orbit.
When your mythical rocket can’t get to the moon and back, you come up with something that gets close. When your mythical rocket gets close to launch and can’t even get close, you reduce your expectations further. Expect more reductions in expectation as the launch gets closer. When your feed trough is finite, you keep it going as long as possible.
Gateway as fuel depot would have made more sense than Gateway as proposed.
I can list 2 or 3 advantages to L-1 as a location for such a station. I would have loved to see a NASA expert explain why the logistical advantages for near-rectilinear halo orbit would have been even greater.
Another useful might-have-been for Gateway would have been as a dirigible, crew capable workstation. With enough refuelability, it could travel to various sites throughout translunar space, supporting various missions, including servicing various valuable satellites in Earth-Moon and Sun-Earth L-points.