Bridenstine: Gateway Is – And Is Not – A Space Station
OK, this is odd, @JimBridenstine just referred to the Gateway as "a human-tended space station" but just a few minutes ago he said that "Gateway is not a space station". If the Administrator of @NASA is confused on this issue … pic.twitter.com/MuiOuJz5fy
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 11, 2019
We just heard @JimBridenstine say that "Gateway is not a space station" yet if you look inside the @LockheedMartin high fidelity mockup they have a plant growth chamber like they use on ISS. Why? This is supposed to be a command/service module according to Bridenstine. pic.twitter.com/L78EfK4yVy
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 11, 2019
The basic problem with the Gateway is that its neither fish nor fowl. Its not a space station in the traditional sense in that humans will only occasionally be there, but it is a facility that allows an extended human presence. So its understandable that the terminology used for it is confused. Personally I would just refer to it as an orbital facility and leave it at that.
Of course if you get rid of it you won’t have to talk about it. That is perhaps the best solution 🙂
It’s starting to look just a little like an Asteroid Redirect Mission,
Isn’t it really the Asteroid Redirect Mission Hardware Redirect Mission?
Yes, like the SLS/Orion it is a legacy of the Obama Administration.
I’m not sure why you say that. ISS and Mir are the only space station which have been permanently occupied. Skylab wasn’t. None of the Salyuts were. Nor was Tiangong-1. Now that I think about it, bus and train stations don’t have permanent residents either. Gateway won’t be much of a space station, nothing like Von Braun’s concepts, and not what I’d call useful. But I think it’s correct to call it a “station”.
It’s a pity they’re sticking it in lunar orbit. Why not try and make it a cycler between the Earth and the Moon, so you can do easier repairs and refueling when it’s doing an Earth pass and ride it out to the Moon for landing?
I’m not sure about the timing for a cycler and repairs. I don’t think you’d want to stop it in low Earth orbit. I see the value of one in the fact that a minimum energy trip to the Moon five days, while the surface to orbit legs are hours. You could use a minimal volume and life support taxi/lander to go to and from a cycler, and the cycler could be nice, roomy and only need to be boosted to the Moon once. (Yes, that does implicitly leave people on the Moon without a way back in emergencies. They’d have to wait until the cycler came back. We also don’t give airplane passengers parachutes.)
True, Skylab and Salyut were only human tended. But those are ancient history to today’s generation.
I was thinking of adding something about how “station” was used during the IGY Antarctic program (1957-58.) I guess it’s just as well I didn’t.
No matter what you call it, it is spelled b-o-o-n-d-o-g-g-l-e! By the time the get it funded, designed and built, SpaceX, Blue Origin, the Chinese or Who-Hit-John will have established a base on the Lunar surface! We need data on the effect of REDUCEDg on human physiology, plus figuring out how to mitigate cosmic and solar radiation beyond one year. We don’t need another microgravity facility! Besides, we are only two years from a possible change in administration, and even if there isn’t a change in the head shed, who knows what the policies will be?
Ad LUNA! Ad Ares! AD ASTRA!
It is pretty clear that no one, including no one at NASA, can communicate what NASA is trying to do with Gateway or why. If NASA cannot communicate this why would anyone, including Congress, support the idea with funding? Maybe the most surprising thing is that the internationals place any semblance of trust in NASA. Maybe they don’t have a choice? This week’s rollout of Moon to Mars plans by NASA and Bridenstine was a dud; they failed at whatever they were trying too do. NASA has no plan, and no vision. I think the strategy must be to simply keep working on something, but with no logic or rationale. And now with the latest round of budget cuts and schedule slips, just simply defer any plan for completiñg anything. NASA’s human space flight program has collapsed. Its a good thing Elon Musk has a vehicle and a vision.