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Artemis

Is Gateway Actually A Stealth "Space Station"?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 5, 2020
Filed under

Keith’s note: On more than one occasion Jim Bridenstine (and others at NASA) have sought to make it clear that NASA does not see Gateway as a “mini space station” only to call it a “space station” moments later. The meme they want to promote is that Gateway is supposed to be some sort of super service module that moves around and enables the whole human lunar landing thing. Well, now Paul Hertz from SMD is saying that they will be using Gateway for “astrophysics and other scientific investigations”. In other words, Gateway is actually a space station (shh!) with inherent/embedded ability to do things that have zero relevance to landing people and things on the Moon. Statements like this simply serve to perpetuate the notion that NASA is simply recreating a ISS in lunar orbit and that they are trying to sell it by saying that it will do something for everyone.
Meanwhile NASA still cannot figure out how to fully utilize the space station they already have in Low Earth Orbit. Oh yes: there are people in HEOMD who seem to think that all of this lunar stuff is just temporary and that they will pivot toward Mars as soon as they can – thus leaving the Gateway with nothing to do. So maybe SMD is thinking of how to get in line for access to Gateway after HEMOD packs up and heads to Mars.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

42 responses to “Is Gateway Actually A Stealth "Space Station"?”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Of course it is a space station, a mini-ISS.

  2. cb450sc says:
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    I wouldn’t interpret any statement regarding astrophysics on Gateway implying some sort of manned requirement. All astrophysics missions are robotic today – even ground-based telescopes have substantially moved in that direction. What Hertz is (probably) really saying is that Gateway will be a platform on which some science boxes can be mounted, and perhaps serviced/replaced later. I don’t think that really implies “space station” any more than LDEF did.

    • kcowing says:
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      This Gateway was only supposed to be used during human missions – in a tended fashion. At other times it just keeps itself operational and does nothing else. But wait: concept studies show space station style experiments. That requires more complexity. Now they are going to need a platform that has ongoing data and pointing systems. Every time NASA mentions the Gateway a new function has been added.

      • fcrary says:
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        To keep itself operational, Gateway will need continuous attitude control and downlink. The real question is how much any added experiments will affect that. If a telescope is going to double the data rate while the station is not crewed or change pointing requirements from +- 1 deg to +- 1 arcsecond, that’s clearly a problem. If it’s bolting on a small, hosted payload, with a tiny addition to housekeeping data rates and a “we’ll take what we can get” requirement on pointing, that’s not such a big deal.

        I do agree NASA is trying to get the broader scientific community to buy in and support Gateway. And that creates a risk of making it more complex, expensive and less efficient for its stated purpose. But it is possible to add some secondary goals without doing that. I’m going to wait and see how this turns out.

      • Terry Stetler says:
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        Such a “temporary station” mission seems better suited to a long duration crew optional vehicle which can be returned to Earth for refitting & refurbishment if required.

        Wonder if anyone’s working on such a beast? ? ☺

  3. Matthew Black says:
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    The whole Gateway paradigm is a multi-billion dollar compromise to make up for the Orion’s lack of delta-v – it cannot BOTH get into and out of lunar orbit by itself: it can only do one or the other. This is a stupid design hangover from Constellation and the Ares 1. NASA and its partners need not spend Billions with a B to make a space station – they can instead use the purported ‘co-manifest’ ability of the SLS with the proper ‘Exploration Upper Stage’ to send to the Moon with Orion a Propulsion ‘Tug’ module that could slow Orion into medium/low lunar orbit to meet the Crew Lander, sent there in a previous launch.

    The Tug could be another Orion Service Module, with no solar arrays and crew consumables; just the AJ10 main engine, a docking mechanism atop the SM-Tug (no CM obviously) and enough propellants for the whole unit to fit into the SLS co-manifest mass limit of 10-to-12 metric tons (depending on the upper stage design).

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      Since AIUI only the Orion is manifested on the SLS Block 1. Why brother with another service module. What the Orion stack need is more propellants. Maybe NASA should just send up a simple pop-off hypergolics drop tank with the Orion stack for docking in orbit like the Apollo with the LEM.

      The obvious long term solution is design a new service module with enough delta-V to get into and out of Lunar orbit.

      Unfortunately time is not on the Artemis program’s side. Since there should be a Shiny vehicle in service by the time NASA can even start to upgraded the Orion stack. Which renders the whole SLS/Orion/Gateway plan of record Moot.

      • Matthew Black says:
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        Giving the Orion’s Service Module more propellants from the start would have been the obvious choice for the Orion/SLS based mission architecture, yes. But re-designing, re-cutting, re-balancing etc Orion for more fuel would be an expensive and slow process this late in the game. And the whole Orion/SLS paradigm is years late and billions in the red already. Either give the program a shortcut to success or scrap the lot and hope the ‘Shiny Starships’ fly well and fly often.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          Yeah, well, that’s what happened when Congress mandated SLS/Orion without any actual money for missions. Designing a launch vehicle and capsule with no firm knowledge about what it’s actually supposed to do was insanity.

    • Not Invented Here says:
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      No, the original intention of Gateway is to provide a destination for SLS/Orion, since they don’t have any money for landers (they still don’t have enough money today).

      Even if Orion can enter and leave LLO, the usual suspects would still create a Gateway, it’s just its orbit would be moved to LLO instead.

      Gateway became a compromise between new space and old space when Bridenstine came on board and changed most of Gateway related launches to commercial launch vehicles. I think this is a good move, I don’t care whether Gateway is a space station or not, I only care whether commercial space is getting its share of the NASA budget, because nothing else is going to get us space cadets to where we wanted to go.

      • Bob Mahoney says:
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        You apparently have no knowledge of Gateway’s origins.

        https://www.nasa.gov/connec

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          I don’t see anything inaccurate in the above post by “Not Invented Here”. Your reply comes off as an absurdly terse personal attack. You include a cite, but it’s a long document and your reply has no clue as to the point you’re actually trying to make.

          • Bob Mahoney says:
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            Gateway was conceived even before there was an Orion or even an Ares V, much less SLS. If my post came across like a personal attack I am truly sorry. That was not my intention.

            My issue is with false history, that is all.

          • fcrary says:
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            I think that’s a little bit of a stretch. The idea of some sort of station in a lunar L1 orbit goes way back. Actually, back to about 1970, if memory serves. But the plan for Gateway hasn’t always been to support lunar landings. The idea of supporting Mars and asteroids missions, without lunar landings, appeared at a few points. In any case, the pre-“Vision for Space Exploration” station didn’t resemble the current configuration of Gateway. That would be like saying ISS was conceived in the 1960s. There were concepts for space stations back then, and some of them involved docking multiple modules together.

          • Bob Mahoney says:
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            Carefully read every formal NASA description of Gateway since 1999 (and the history book on the subject), even in the midst of the silly ARM detour. Its listed purpose/function has always included lunar access as part of its service ‘ milieu’, even when the lunar access capability/potentiality was de-emphasized…but not eliminated.
            Its name IS its purpose: a functional technological enabler / steppingstone toward multiple potential destinations and capabilities across the solar system. Which is why Keith is pointing out the muddling of the message by some players here.

        • Not Invented Here says:
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          I have actually read that book.

          In my comment, the word “Gateway” refers to this current incarnation of the gateway concept, which is included in the current PoR. You’ll notice the concept of a gateway is not always in the PoR, Constellation didn’t include a gateway, now we have one, there must be a reason behind this change, no? This is what I meant by “the original intention of Gateway”, not the original intention of the gateway concept, but the original intention of the current version of the Gateway that NASA is funding right now.

  4. Jeff2Space says:
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    It’s a space station. It’s clearly becoming “all things to everyone” just like ISS did.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Didn’t we walk down that road with STS?

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        It’s really the only road that NASA knows. Add missions to add support. Allow scientists too hang a few experiments on it and they will support it…

        • fcrary says:
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          That even happens within the science directorate. JWST and WFIRST have some capabilities for planetary and exoplanetary science, which weren’t part of the original focus on cosmology. The Mars 2020 rover has some atmospheric science instruments which aren’t exactly in keeping with the stated geology and astrobiology goals. (Not to mention that helicopter which doesn’t actually do anything useful, as far as I can tell…)

  5. robert_law says:
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    I thought the gateway was a reusabile command module and could be used for the eventual basis for a human Mars mission by adding more solar prepulsion , the gate way can also change orbit to support landing at diferent sites on the Moon . The problem Orion has of not getting straight into low lunar orbit is the current design of the European Service module was fixed under the original deep space gatway concept before the change in direction back to the Moon ?

  6. Steve Pemberton says:
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    I guess one definition of a space station is a habitable space vehicle that is in a permanent or semi-permanent orbital location around a body (including halo orbits) and is not itself used to transport astronauts from one location to another.

    That being said I can somewhat understand why NASA is hesitant to use that description for Gateway because it could sound like besides facilitating lunar landings it would also be doing traditional space station activities, which critics might jump on questioning why are we spending money doing any of that in lunar orbit where it has no advantage over Earth orbit. Telerobotics would be an exception but I have not heard of any plans to do that on Gateway. Gateway will exist as its name implies to facilitate landing on the Moon and eventually maybe trips beyond cislunar. So I guess they prefer to call it a gateway to better express in one word what its purpose is. That’s fine but it seems somewhat self-serving to take it a step further and try and redefine traditional terminology by saying that it is not a space station. Bridenstine may have been better off saying that it will not be a traditional space station or something like that.

    Looking to the future we will likely have other “space stations” serving various logistical purposes in different locations in the solar system. No reason not to continue to call all of them space stations. But there can certainly be subcategories such as fuel depots (if astronauts will be on board at times), gateways, telerobotics stations, destinations (tourist hotels) and in the case of something like ISS in Earth orbit maybe microgravity research stations.

    • Bob Mahoney says:
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      Way station is more accurate but not sufficient. Gateway indeed is a smart name for a few reasons but its being abused through a convoluted history has muddled things up.

  7. Michael Spencer says:
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    It appears difficult to get any sort of consensus on what’s to be done on ISS, and how to assess it. And that being the case, it follows that the station is whatever we say it is!

    So, here’s what I want: I want a big rotating von Braun station. Programmatically, I’m thinking: a couple of hotels, with bars; and one or two ‘dive’ bars, for atmosphere. At least three restaurants: one Italian, one pizza, the other? who knows.There are ‘docking bays’, of course. And there’a shipyard! Big enough to handle construction of an interplanetary bird for long term exploration.

    And there’s only one technical thing standing in the way. A compact, reliable, and dense energy sources created the modern US Navy with its carrier backbone, and it’s what will make the exploration and domination of space possible. Unfortunately, it will likely require a breakthrough in fundamental physics as well.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      No, not a physics breakthrough, merely a political one…

      • fcrary says:
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        Well, financial in any case. I suppose that’s also political although it doesn’t involve the government.

        But while we’re at it, could we put a pool table in one of those bars? I’m curious how the Coriolis force would affect the game.

        • Tim Blaxland says:
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          This gives you some idea: http://www.alejolab.com/blo…. I like the idea of a padded games room to bounce around and throw stuff in 🙂

          • fcrary says:
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            Some idea, but I’ve never seen a simulation which got things like draw and english right. In a spinning habitat, the ball would gain follow faster when you shoot in one direction rather than another. It might be critical to know if the table was long-side parallel or perpendicular to the spin axis. And some of the possibilities for taking money off tourists would be new and different.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Tennis? Pickle Ball? Squash? Courts could be located at the outer rim, and near the center, and at a mid point. Tournament play would be excellent!

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        I’m not aware of an energy source sufficiently dense to do, for instance, what we see in The Expanse.

        It’s very lear that chemical rocket propulsion, even with refueling, is the limiting factor in space operations; take for instance the required, and quite elegant, planetary slingshots.

        This is why I’ve warily supported creation of the Space Force: perhaps the military will provide sufficient research dollars, and will stay the course for the required decades.

        • fcrary says:
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          You started off by talking about Von Braun-style stations in low Earth orbit. I don’t think we need radically new technology for that. If (and I insist on saying if) Starship works, I think that would be enough. If it doesn’t, I think it will get far enough to show that a different but equally ambitious design could work.

          But as far as deep space exploration (or even a significant lunar base), I think we’ve got the technology as well. Expecting fusion rockets is a bit much. By analogy to aviation, we’re probably at the stage of biplanes around 1910, and we’d need major, new technology to get to the level of a DC-3. True. But aviation did a lot in between, with aircraft like the Sprit of St. Louis.

          I think we can go a long way with chemical rockets (existing ones will do), solar electric propulsion (mostly there, but the state of the art needs improvement) and nuclear thermal rockets (largely a new development, but definitely not new physics.) Oh, and some nuclear reactors for power when the Sun isn’t up, but that’s also adapting and evolving existing technology.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            “You started off …”

            Wandering logic could be part of a liberal arts education. Feature, or bug? Who knows. lol.

            Doesn’t seem smart to argue with someone who actually knows the subject, but I do think a few points can be made. Your analogy to the early history of airplanes is appealing but has a fatal flaw: we never discarded airplanes after single use.

            That simple fact underscores my point more than any other; a century from now we will look back at the now-accepted procedure dumping boosters and other extremely pricey hardware as just stunningly beyond the pale.

            And yet that’s the price we pay to extract every last erg from whatever energy source we are using. It is all we have, for now. A more apt comparison: Current efforts are as pictures of animals on the walls of caves.

            I’m appealing to the ‘big picture’ here. So much depends on figuring out how the universe actually works: finding a place for dark matter/energy (is it not laughable that more than half the universe is entirely unexplained?); producing a gravity explanation that includes testable predictions; somehow marrying the whole pantheon of quantum thermodynamics into, again, testable predictions. I could go on, but I know folks reading this see the point.

            This is not a negative position on my part; it’s obvious that the entire universe will be ours if we are ever able to conquer fundamental physics/ cosmology (they tend to run into each other). The energy density required will be found. Not in my lifetime, alas.

    • chuckc192000 says:
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      I like that — a 2001-style space station!

  8. Winner says:
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    As somebody trained scientifically in a field different than space flight, why do I get the repeated impression that the most basic freshman approaches to a major program are not being followed? NASA is given a 5 or so year mandate to return to the moon, and months later we don’t even have a plan or details on how that will be done. We have major components (Gateway) whose requirements don’t seem to be well-elucidated and appear to be changing going on a year later.

    I would have expected within a few months a simple, basic, path of what we’re going to do and what are the major components, plans, and timelines. Near none of that has become clear and we are approaching 20% of the timeline having gone by. This feels like a complete failure and only further supports the perception that there is no way this project is happening anywhere within budget or the timelines given. It also calls into question the overall competency of whoever is leading the process.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      “why do I get the repeated impression that the most basic freshman approaches to a major program are not being followed?”

      Excuse me. I can’t stop laughing…

  9. BlueMoon says:
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    Gateway came to be not because of what activities it will support or enable. It came to be because it is what NASA decided can most usefully be done with the Congressionally-mandated SLS and Orion designs, and one combined mission of them per year. The Gateway concept evolved out of the Capability Driven Framework studies for Gerstenmaier, almost 10 years ago. That title says it all: Figure out what we can do with the human spaceflight hardware and mission rate capability we’re stuck with.

    • Bob Mahoney says:
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      Incorrect. Please see above.

      • BlueMoon says:
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        Hmmm…maybe I was working on some imaginary and different Gateway effort, starting in 2010. It was internally called Waypoint back then.

      • BlueMoon says:
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        PS: I read the NASA document you pointed us to. I found only one mention of a lunar orbiting facility, on Page 19, with no configuration or capabilities descrbed. What are we missing? If you can point me to a NASA document that describes a crew-tended lunar orbiting facility assembled from SLS/Orion co-manifested payloads of approx 10 mT, from before 2009, I’d like to read it.

        • Bob Mahoney says:
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          Go to the NTRS and find the documentation of what the DPT and NEXT efforts generated. I had provided links over in a Space Review thread a bit ago. It was originally labeled an Outpost but the Gateway terminology is there from the beginning. The teams drew inspiration from Lewis & Clark and St Louis being the staging base.

  10. Shaw_Bob says:
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    Or, is Gateway really the core of a Mars ship, conveniently parked near the Moon and out of the way of orbital debris, radiation belts and the like…