Beyond-the-moon base stirs up buzz

[bananas]

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/24/14072181-beyond-the-moon-base-stirs-up-buzz?lite

Beyond-the-moon base stirs up buzz

By Alan Boyle


NASA / Boeing via NASASpaceflight.com
An artist's conception shows a deep-space transfer vehicle flying near a exploration gateway platform at right.

A concept that calls for building a deep-space outpost beyond the moon's orbit has stirred up some positive buzz from space pioneers — including Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin.

Over the weekend, the Orlando Sentinel reported that top NASA officials have chosen the construction of a space exploration platform at a gravitational balance point known as EML-2, or Earth-moon Lagrange point 2, as the agency's next major mission. The outpost would be held in an orbit 277,000 miles away from Earth, and 38,000 miles beyond the moon.

<snip>

Aldrin has long urged NASA to set up a similar "floating launching pad" at a different balance point between Earth and the moon, called EML-1 or L1, and this weekend he said that platforms at L1 or L2, plus fueling depots for spaceships, would serve as appropriate "intermediate steps" for voyages to Mars and other worlds.

"It's part of my unified space vision," he told me during an international gathering of spacefliers and mission managers at Seattle's Museum of Flight.

<snip>

[longship]

1. A great looking project

Happy to R&K this.

The EML-2 is part of the Interplanetary Superhighway, low energy transfer orbits to just about anywhere in the solar system.

Very cool idea.

[HopeHoops]

2. It makes sense. It will be easier to keep it in a stable orbit than it is with the ISS.

[malthaussen]

3. Time to queue up "Home, home on Lagrange."