NASA's moon-orbiting space station will be claustrophobic, architect admits

No more stations should be built without rotation. The body needs gravity for good health. Weightless experiments can be done in the center. And it gives us a gradient of gravity for further experiments.
 
They should have let SpaceX use a Starship for a station They could park it in orbit and use it as needed. Solar panels could be attached. It's much bigger and would have a lot more room. And it could launch itself. They could also add one of those inflatable modules from, who is it, Bigalow? That would be a pretty big station.
 
Sep 4, 2022
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They should have let SpaceX use a Starship for a station They could park it in orbit and use it as needed. Solar panels could be attached. It's much bigger and would have a lot more room. And it could launch itself. They could also add one of those inflatable modules from, who is it, Bigalow? That would be a pretty big station.
Bigelow Aerospace is defunct, unfortunately.
 
Jun 18, 2020
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Small steps always starts with modest spaces. The original Apollo crew literally flew around for days in a coffin! I hope Sierra Space's habitat could be quickly added to the Gateway! Wish bigelow hadn't imploded literally..but it did prove with BEAM these habitats work in space. Hopefully Sierra wont need that kind of extended test
 
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They should have let SpaceX use a Starship for a station They could park it in orbit and use it as needed. Solar panels could be attached. It's much bigger and would have a lot more room. And it could launch itself. They could also add one of those inflatable modules from, who is it, Bigalow? That would be a pretty big station.

I would have thought they could re-purpose the Lunar Starship and just park it back at the gateway, just need a big docking adapter. Park a few of them there and you'll have enough room to stretch your legs.
 
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I wonder how big an inflatable module a starship could launch? All current inflatable are made for heavy lift rockets with small fairings
 
Jan 9, 2023
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You would think they could have done something similar to Skylab, launch the larger station into lower orbit then launch another booster that could attach to it and send it on its way to the moon. If I understand correctly all you need to do is nudge it in the direction you want, with no need for constant pressure, even wait maybe 6 months for it to arrive at the moon.
 
It is more than a "nudge" to move something heavy from low Earth orbit to the Moon's orbit.

But, there is another approach besides sending up a whole new rocket booster - send up new fuel for the one that is already in low Earth orbit. That is what SpaceX is planning to do with Starship, and there are currently proof-of-concept missions for in-orbit refueling.

So, at least the plan to use a Starship for transit between lunar orbit and lunar surface seems inconsistent with the plan for the lunar orbiting habitat. The "taxi" is going to be far more spacious than the "hotel".

Which brings me back to the whole concept of needing any of the Artemis equipment if Starship is successful in getting to the Moon, landing, and returning to lunar orbit, which NASA is currently contracting SpaceX to do. Why not simply put the NASA astronauts in the Starship as it goes to the Moon and not use the Aremis equipment to get there?

I am reading between the lines that NASA is not yet ready to bet everything on SpaceX's Starship being successful, at least not in the time frame that NASA is trying to achieve. Consistent with that belief, NASA has recently established a contract with another company to provide a ferry vehicle between lunar orbit and lunar surface.
 
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Jan 9, 2023
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We can do better.
Yes, we can. This whole article seems like a NASA copout. They need to be like SpaceX and come up with a good idea and then figure out how to build it. NASA seems to do everything backward, like having a space station so small that a person can't stand straight. That is so lame and we the taxpayers are flipping the bill. Whoever agreed to this dumb Idea needs to be fired immediately.
 
Aug 21, 2020
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No more stations should be built without rotation. The body needs gravity for good health. Weightless experiments can be done in the center. And it gives us a gradient of gravity for further experiments.

Lunar Gateway is only meant as a transfer station to move astronauts form Orion to HLS and back. Its not for long term habitation.
 
For Mars, rotation will be needed and it's an easy solution to maintain human health and strength. I use the word easy because no proof of concept is necessary. The $ cost is not considered. And when it is, just remember it's taxpayer's money. We all know the concern here. Or lack thereof.

But there is another problem which has not been solved.....shielding from radiation. We are really naked out there. And so far, we have gambled with probability. But for Mars, we need more confidence and surety.

It will cost lots of money to SAFELY go to Mars. I don't believe it to be cost effective......the only result will be a boost in man's reputation. Mars has nothing we need. And knowledge is vastly overrated.

Until our tech advances, only probes should be sent to other planets. How many probes could we send out for the cost of one Mars manned trip?

If I were running NASA, I would spend much more on hardware, than exploration. We need much faster crafts for real exploration. Velocity and the lack of, is the first problem. And I believe that the math narratives about acceleration and velocity can be nullified. With intermittent acceleration.

For real space travel, we need to do what all other explorers have done. We need to learn to live off the land, off of the environment that we are in. And for space, that means large collectors to harvest particles. Possibly tack and sail on the solar wind. Very large structures. This wind is very fast.
 

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Jan 11, 2023
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Evolving robotics will do everything we want to do on Mars at a fraction of the expense and infinitely less risk than manned missions. My fear is that we will get a few people on Mars successfully and then suffer a devastating asteroid impact back on earth for which we were woefully unprepared.
 
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