Trump calls for a $2.7B space station to orbit the moon

By the time the United States hits the 54-year anniversary of the original moon landing, NASA hopes to have a place ready for astronauts to live and work near the lunar surface.

The project, called the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, would operate similarly to the International Space Station. But instead of orbiting Earth, the lunar platform will orbit the moon.

And if all goes as planned, it would be ready for human habitation by 2023.

The platform would "help us further explore the moon and its resources and translate that experience toward human missions to Mars," Robert Lightfoot, NASA's acting administrator, said in his State of NASA address earlier this month.

The lunar gateway was one of several projects funded in President Donald Trump's $19.9 billion NASA budget proposal for fiscal year 2019, which places a heavy emphasis on human exploration.

The budget plan allocates $10.5 billion to human exploration, while cutting a number of climate change-related missions and the agency's $99.3 million education office.

About $2.7 billion would go toward building the platform through the 2023 fiscal year under Trump's proposal, with $504.2 million set aside in the coming year. Congress still must approve the budget.

Much like the current space station where astronauts have lived for 18 years, the platform would be assembled over time. The power and propulsion element is targeted for launch in 2022. This element would use solar electric propulsion to keep the gateway in the appropriate position in space. It also would provide space-to-Earth, space-to-lunar and spacecraft-to-spacecraft communications, as well as support communication for spacewalks. Lasers would be used to transfer large datasets, meaning it would happen at a much faster rate, according to a Feb. 13 NASA web post.

Source: houstonchronicle