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from the Whatever-happened-to-the-six-million-dollar-*man*? dept.
Gateway Moon station: Canada joins Nasa space project
Canada will contribute US$1.4bn to a proposed Nasa space station that will orbit the Moon and act as a base to land astronauts on its surface.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the step would "push the boundaries of innovation".
The space station, called Gateway, is a key element in Nasa's plan to return to the Moon with humans in the 2020s.
As part of the 24-year commitment, Canada will build a next-generation robotic arm for the new lunar outpost.
"Canada is going to the Moon," Mr Trudeau told a news conference at Canadian Space Agency's headquarters near Montreal, according to AFP.
*Canada is going near the Moon.
Also at CBC and Popular Mechanics.
Previously: Russia Assembles Engineering Group for Lunar Activities and the Deep Space Gateway
China Will Focus on a Lunar Surface Station Rather than a Lunar Orbiting Station
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Could Launch Japanese and European Payloads to Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway
Head of Russian Space Agency Roscosmos Wavers on Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway
Is the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway the Right Way to the Moon?
Related: Future of U.S.-Russian Space Cooperation in Doubt
ESA Plans to Send Mining Equipment to the Moon
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @02:07PM (4 children)
A smart old engineer I know mentioned that he worked at Iowa State in the '50s and was a bit player in James van Allen's discovery/mapping of the radiation belts trapped by Earth's magnetic field. Based on the strength of the radiation (it's very strong), this guy is convinced that no one could have gone to the Moon and survived the radiation dosage. Thus, he's in the "Moon landing faked" camp, even claims that some astronauts nearly drowned while filming scenes underwater...
Without knowing much beyond what I've read casually, I can accept that the combination of choosing a path through a thinner area of radiation (away from the Equator), plus some shielding, kept the dose to an acceptable level.
Any one know if radiation has been discussed relative to current plans for people to go back to the Moon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @05:18PM (1 child)
i thought the van-allen belt was the space-based oil spill equivalent to the gulf of mexico disaster after the starfish upper athmosphere ..uhm ..err ... well that thing that won the 2nd world war in asia?
unfortunately there are no space-based bacteria that digest that .. uhm ... stuff that lingers after that starfish "experiment" so
it's not a bug but a feature? ^_^
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 03 2019, @05:34PM
Van Allen belts are natural. Starfish Prime test created artificial radiation belts, but they didn't last for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime#After_effects [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_radiation_belts [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 03 2019, @05:20PM
Radiation risks appear to be greatly overestimated.
It's nothing good for astronauts, but NASA's definition of an unacceptable radiation risk is basically a more than 3% risk of exposure-induced death. Which could happen many years later.
https://spaceradiation.jsc.nasa.gov/irModels/TP-2013-217375.pdf [nasa.gov]
Apparently astronauts aboard LOP-G will be limited to stays of one month, or possibly longer [planetary.org]. Compare to ISS stays of beyond 1 year.
If some country actually reaches the surface of the Moon to build a Moon base, they could use lunar soil for shielding or go into a pre-existing "cave" [soylentnews.org].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday March 04 2019, @03:25AM
Just once I've seen an accurately scaled diagram of the Apollo Trajectory; it went quite far South on the way out then quite far North on the way back. Or vice-versa.
That accurately-scaled diagram indicated that it was quite a lot more to the North or to the South than the diameter of the entire Earth.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]