NASA Pondering L2 Outpost, Return To Moon

New submitter Joiseybill writes "Now that the election is over, any voters that may have been influenced can rest easy. Space.com reports that the agency has been 'thinking about setting up a manned outpost beyond the moon's far side, both to establish a human presence in deep space and to build momentum toward a planned visit to an asteroid in 2025.' Space policy expert John Logsdon said, 'NASA has been evolving its thinking, and its latest charts have inserted a new element of cislunar/lunar gateway/Earth-moon L2 sort of stuff into the plan. They've been holding off announcing that until after the election.' According to the article, 'Rumors currently point toward parking a spacecraft at the Earth-moon L2 gateway, so NASA (and perhaps international partners) can learn more about supporting humans in deep space. Astronauts stationed there could also aid in lunar exploration — by teleoperating rovers on the moon's surface, for example.'"

Re:Old news...

[ibsteve2u]

The more discussed, the better. If it was here two weeks ago, the planet's population has increased by somewhere in the vicinity of 2,952,992 humans since then.

Getting time to leave.

Re:Old news...

[gagol]

Don't get me wrong, I love space and cannot wait to go to mars for vacation when I retire! But better this than more election coverage... As for your argument, I somehow doubt the newborns will be able to contribute to this discussion. In other news, a facebook phishing scam has been left unreported on Slashdot. I blame the editor ;-) looking forward to all of your comments here.

reason for going to the moon...

[wierd_w]

Often, I hear people demanding to know what practical reason humans would have to travel to the moon again. Many people bring up pipedreams like space ports, or lunar mining complexes.

I have a better reason.

The moon is tidelocked with the earth, has a very stable orbit, and a fairly large circumference. We should put an interferometric space telescope on the dark side of the moon. We could then use the entire circumference of the "visible/invisible" hemisphere terminator zone as the effective aperature size, and be free of atmospheric distortions.

The kinds of pictures we could get from such a telescope would make hubble look like a cheap webcam in comparison.

Put the command/control antenna on the visible side of the moon, and have it garanteed to always be pointed at the earth.