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: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday March 04 2019, @03:16AM
Of course it's plainly apparent that to supply fuel in LEO orbit or in Lunar Orbit is what we want.
But nobody ever mentions why that's never been so much as talked about:
To launch so very much liquid fuel, to handle such large, inertially-massive tanks of liquid gas would be dangerous.
Just imaging that one hundred tons of LO2 were drifting in your general direction at one inch per second.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]