Quoted:


Look y'all fuckers. I'll will you a story.

GATEWAY or LOPG:
In the before before times. Before spacex was in the process of taking over NASA had issues with consistent programs or funding.


They were working on SLS/Orion but has no where to go. Presidents shifted priorities every 4-8 years from moon to mars to an asteroid. All very different missions. Budgets were tight. It was legitimately looking like NASA would never get the consistency to get anything done outside LEO ever again.

Enter NASA's Brain .
*******
""We are going to have a ship and a BFR . No money/time for a lander .no money/time for a bigger ship for mars and no mars lander either . Hmmmmmmmmmm ..I got it!! .space station around the moon!

Other nasa dude: "what that's fucking worthless and wouldn't help a lunar lander or mission at all?!"

First nasa dude:
"No listen fucker, build a small station with a small propulsion system around the moon! Tell congress and the people it will help (it won't help shit) but it gives us a cheapish do-able mission. One we get it out there it will be a funding anchor liability like the ISS.

IF we get astronauts to the moon gateway all of the USA will say ok cool when do they land when watching it on tv. NASA says never because we never got funding for a lander. All of congress goes well fuck we have to have a lander duh doi! Also we can theoretically use gateway as the habitat we throw to mars for the journey if we build it out more"
*********



The idea of gateway is a funding anchor and busy work for beyond Leo human missions. We are fast approaching with spacex a world where hundreds of tons of cargo can be dropped on the moon for relatively nothing. So the gateway doesn't make much since. It doesn't help Artemis AT ALL but it gives them an excuse for a mission if no lander is available. It give international partners something to make(modules).

But NASA in 2011-2017 was a bleak place and the gateway was the smartest option they could make. It was a funding anchor they could launch to the moon for shit they knew how to do (modular stations).


Robert zubrin right fully calls it a tollbooth because it literally hurts mission and will be a funding anchor around NASA's neck in the future. Where NASA will be like fuck gateway let it die in the future but congress will say NO you wanted it no your money has to go to that. So gateway might just suck up our moon base money in the future.

Quoted:
Finally, something that could make "sense".

Repeating that SLS can't also do moon landings due to insufficient TLI tonnage does not explain Gateway, it only justifies HLS. I don't know why others kept saying that.

But gateway is easy to build using old space. So NASA continuing with inadequate Artemis meant gateway was the only place it could go. SpaceX appears and can produce HLS making gateway superfluous. NASA doesn't want to cancel gateway because in the future it could have a purpose.

Starship is huge. It's way bigger than needed for HLS. It had a completely different mission. But by launching 4 tankers, it can be sent to the moon with enough fuel to serve as a moon orbit to moon, moon habitat, and back to moon orbit vehicle. In the future, it can be refueled.  A smaller HLS than starship would probably be more optimal. Time to build that later.

Quoted:


The ratuonal way to view and judge SLS, Orion, Gateway, etc is all through this lens:

What is simultaneously the cheapest, least risky*, and easiest way to milk as much money as possible for as long as possible?

*Risk being perceived as anything different than what's already been flown.

SLS needed a destination, since it couldn't go to the Moon. Enter LOP-G. LOP-G was nice simple pork from the same prime contractors as always. Everyone stays happy. It's the exact same story as STS and the ISS: to perpetuate the self-licking ice cream cone, not to boldly go anywhere new at all.

Many years ago I ran across a highly detailed financial analysis somewhere on an old AngelFire or Yahoo page, that laid out a truly impressive analysis of space exploration funding. Essentially, the "smart move", if ones total decision making was bounded by funding levels and not politics, was to stop all spaceflight for a period of a few years, maybe a decade. Dedicate *all* funding to maximizing launch efficiency and bringing down the cost to orbit. Instead of a few tens of millions here and there for prototype launch systems that never get to be trialed, pour all the billions you have into a Manhattan Project of launch tech. *Then* once you have a mature and inexpensive method to orbit, start launching the missions you actually want to do.

Quoted:


We already know how to get cheap TONS of material to the moon or mars. No scientific issue.

you don’t get cheaper by “taking a break and focusing on getting cheaper”


You run a fucking elimination tournament fixed cost contract SHLV bids. Take 15 bids. Ala Crew dragon.


Cut down to 4 contractors. 2 years later cut down to the best 3. And tell the remaining three that only two will ever get a launch contract.

You will basically Make a new spacex out of (Rocketlab, Firefly, BO, Etc.)


Illogically, It will be cheaper and a far better system.

It’s also something that would NEVER get through congress because why would they give NASA money they can’t guarantee would come back to their district?.

Quoted:
H2 leaks have been common since STS days.  Sample news article

Why they haven't designed a superior connection, is a question that really needs answered.