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, @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]