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Buzz Aldrin proposes “Transway Orbit Rendevous” plan: near-Earth Gateway

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ecarfan

Well-Known Member
Moderator
Buzz Aldrin is looking forward, not back—and he has a plan to bring NASA along

QUOTE: “a low-Earth orbit staging point for deep space missions, or a node, would also allow NASA’s entire Moon program to be flown with existing, or soon to exist, commercial rockets, including the Falcon Heavy, New Glenn, Vulcan, Ariane 6, or other boosters. Why launch the expensive, expendable SLS rocket when much lower-cost, reusable options exist?

Under Aldrin’s plan, NASA would then develop a reusable “tug” to travel between Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Such a cislunar tug could be sized for any mission, ferrying 25 tons or more of cargo—astronauts, landers, fuel, or supplies—per roundtrip. It could be refueled in low-Earth orbit (again, with fuel brought up on reusable rockets) for future journeys. The vehicle could also incorporate an aeroshell to use Earth’s atmosphere as a “brake” when coming back to the planet, thus saving more fuel.”
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Hmm...that sounds a lot like a Super Heavy/Starship to me.
 
Buzz Aldrin is looking forward, not back—and he has a plan to bring NASA along

QUOTE: “a low-Earth orbit staging point for deep space missions, or a node, would also allow NASA’s entire Moon program to be flown with existing, or soon to exist, commercial rockets, including the Falcon Heavy, New Glenn, Vulcan, Ariane 6, or other boosters. Why launch the expensive, expendable SLS rocket when much lower-cost, reusable options exist?

Under Aldrin’s plan, NASA would then develop a reusable “tug” to travel between Earth orbit and lunar orbit. Such a cislunar tug could be sized for any mission, ferrying 25 tons or more of cargo—astronauts, landers, fuel, or supplies—per roundtrip. It could be refueled in low-Earth orbit (again, with fuel brought up on reusable rockets) for future journeys. The vehicle could also incorporate an aeroshell to use Earth’s atmosphere as a “brake” when coming back to the planet, thus saving more fuel.”
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Hmm...that sounds a lot like a Super Heavy/Starship to me.
My take on this is that he'd better be careful walking home alone at night.

The entire point to the Lunar Gateway (or whatever they're calling it this week) is to have a mission for the SLS. The entire purpose of the SLS is pork. People don't like it when someone starts talking about taking the bacon away.
 
My take on this is that he'd better be careful walking home alone at night.

The entire point to the Lunar Gateway (or whatever they're calling it this week) is to have a mission for the SLS. The entire purpose of the SLS is pork. People don't like it when someone starts talking about taking the bacon away.
I think Buzz is well aware of that situation. :cool: He’s a sharp guy. And Eric Berger’s article makes it pretty clear what the SLS actually accomplishes; jobs in all 50 states.
 
Unfortunately, the article also makes clear that people like Buzz Aldrin are a dying breed with the bacon lovers still firmly in the driver's (and Congressional) seats.

To my mind, a very big issue is that there's no commercial reason to go to the moon, so it's all going to be directed by Governments focused on pork, flags and footprints. Near Earth is a different matter entirely with lots of commercial opportunities. We'll see if the space technology developed for this spills over to deep space exploration missions by simply making things like the SLS too embarrassing to continue.