Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2017

ASTRONAUTICS To as- s emb l e and launch a space vehi- cle into lunar orbit would surely have advantages over the other more ‘earthly’ solutions, but there is the risk that something un- foreseen could always push the first human mission to Mars further away. On the other hand, the openness that NASA immediately showed towards the other international space flight entities, which it asked for collaboration and sharing of ex- periences, cannot help but be favourable to the achievement of the Deep Space Gateway. Robert Lightfoot, acting admin- istrator at NASA’s headquarters in Wash- ington, noted when the project was in- troduced: “I envision different partners, both international and commercial, con- tributing to the gateway and using it in a variety of ways with a system that can move to different orbits to enable a vari- ety of missions. The gateway could move to support robotic or partner missions to the surface of the Moon, or to a high lunar orbit to support missions departing from the gateway to other destinations in the solar system” . And Igor Komarov, Director