NASA may be preparing a moon base announcement...!

[Digitalgypsy66]

NASA may be preparing to announce an initiative to begin building a floating Moon base for future deep space missions following the U.S. presidential election next month, Space.com reported this week.
The space agency's rumored plan to construct and position a "gateway spacecraft" that could support a small crew of astronauts and serve as a staging platform for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system was first reported last month by the Orlando Sentinel, though NASA contractor Boeing had actually floated a similar plan late last year.
As with the Sentinel report, Space.com cited unnamed sources with insights into NASA's internal plans.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410535,00.asp

This is really pretty cool, if it comes to fruition. All your (moon) base belong to us...

[tifosi77]

That would be sweet.

Not to cross-pollinate the threads, but it's a shame the only legitimately big idea any presidential candidate touted on the campaign trail was Newt Gingrich's moon base agenda. The shame of course being twofold; that he was mocked for it, and that it was..... well, that it was Gingrich's idea.

[columbia]

[tifosi77]

I had the Eagle playset when I was a kid.

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

Maybe now we'll finally find the Decipticon's lair.

[ILikeTurtles]

Moon base Zappa?

[Rylan]

I will go to Mars still.

[redwill]

I will go to Mars still.

[Eismann]

[AlexPKeaton]

I fully give credit to Newt Gingrich. As soon as he announced his plans for that it let the other politicians know that people of both parties actually want this stuff, since that was by far the most popular thing he said in the primaries.

[newarenanow]

Until they build a real life Deathstar, I will not be impressed.

[relantel]

Too good to be true. Will take quite some time just to get US manned spaceflight going again with all the program cancellations and all.

[Shyster]

It would take far less time and far, far less money to construct this station if NASA contracted it to the private sector. For example, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which the company plans to test-fly next year, has a designed payload rating of 16,000 kg to trans-lunar trajectory. That is more than enough lift to place modules of the size the International Space Station is made of at the L-Point. And SpaceX is already developing that rocket. NASA doesn’t need to spend a single penny on the launch system. The Falcon Heavy has also been designed to meet all known requirements of human rating, so it can send humans to that position too.

[Lt. Dish]

[Eismann]

Bank

[ulf]

It would take far less time and far, far less money to construct this station if NASA contracted it to the private sector. For example, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which the company plans to test-fly next year, has a designed payload rating of 16,000 kg to trans-lunar trajectory. That is more than enough lift to place modules of the size the International Space Station is made of at the L-Point. And SpaceX is already developing that rocket. NASA doesn’t need to spend a single penny on the launch system. The Falcon Heavy has also been designed to meet all known requirements of human rating, so it can send humans to that position too.

Are you telling me someone can do something better than our government?

[Shyster]

Here’s a great example. In 2010, NASA finished building a 390-foot-tall mobile launch tower at Kennedy Space Center. That tower was for launching Ares I rockets, which have now been canceled. It may never be used. According to Spaceflight Now, “The total cost of the mobile launcher project is estimated at around $500 million, according to NASA.”

So NASA spent half a billion dollars building a launch tower for a rocket that will never fly. Not a rocket, not a spacecraft—a half billion spent on a launch tower. On the other hand, the estimated development costs for SpaceX’s Falcon rockets is around $300 million. That was for the development of two clean-sheet-of-paper launch vehicles (the Falcon 1 and the Falcon 9), including rocket engines, flight computers, navigation systems, launch sites, and all other hardware. In fact, NASA once estimated what it would have cost them to develop the Falcon 9 had they done it themselves. NASA estimated that Falcon 9 would have cost them $3.977 billion to develop: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/586023main_8-3-11_NAFCOM.pdf

That’s a difference in price in excess of an order of magnitude.

[SolidSnake]

Mass Effect

[shafnutz05]

Mass Effect

I've always been a huge astronomy buff, which is probably why I loved that series so much.

[Willie Kool]

[DocEmrick]

Lol NASA...30 years behind the MIC...

[columbia]

"Iron Sky": I will be watching that soonish.

[tifosi77]

Until they build a real life Deathstar, I will not be impressed.

According to pre-production artwork, the Death Star was 100 miles in diameter.... or about the distance between Altoona and Pittsburgh, or Los Angeles and San Diego.

That would indeed be.... impressive.

Spoiler:

Most impressive.

[tifosi77]

Here’s a great example. In 2010, NASA finished building a 390-foot-tall mobile launch tower at Kennedy Space Center. That tower was for launching Ares I rockets, which have now been canceled. It may never be used. According to Spaceflight Now, “The total cost of the mobile launcher project is estimated at around $500 million, according to NASA.”

So NASA spent half a billion dollars building a launch tower for a rocket that will never fly. Not a rocket, not a spacecraft—a half billion spent on a launch tower. On the other hand, the estimated development costs for SpaceX’s Falcon rockets is around $300 million. That was for the development of two clean-sheet-of-paper launch vehicles (the Falcon 1 and the Falcon 9), including rocket engines, flight computers, navigation systems, launch sites, and all other hardware. In fact, NASA once estimated what it would have cost them to develop the Falcon 9 had they done it themselves. NASA estimated that Falcon 9 would have cost them $3.977 billion to develop: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/586023main_8-3-11_NAFCOM.pdf

That’s a difference in price in excess of an order of magnitude.

Which of course explains the glut of privately funded manned flights to the moon since 1969. I mean, sheesh..... you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some dude's space rocket.

[BigMcK]

The Astronaut Farmer. Government is not too keen on rouge rocket makers launching themselves into space.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469263/