Trip to farside and Lunar Station?

[spacemaverick]

http://www.businessinsider.com/rumor-has-it-were-sending-humans-beyond-the-moon-2012-11

Do not know how true this is but I thought it was worth a mention.  It seems the Obama Administration wants to put a lunar station on the far-side of the moon.  Or maybe they will reveal that one is already there?  Interesting information.

[zorgon]

Now THAT is very odd and intereting as it was Obama who told NASA that they couldn't go back to the Moon and cut their budget.

Now he is reversing that? Hmmmm I will have to watch this one closely. Thanks for the heads up

[slywaden]

a real eye catcher.  if stated here correctly , i believe this reference by our president , could only mean that there is and has been  a base on the farside of our moon, for a good while of time.

[slywaden]

very good catch spacemaverick!

[The Seeker]

Now this is interesting...

President Barack Obama is still in power, which is good news for NASA, whose budget, strategy and missions may have been revised under defeated Republication presidential candidate Mitt Romney.     

Space policy expert John Logsdon told Space.com's Mike Wall that plans to send humans to the far side of the moon have already been approved by the Obama administration, but were kept hush-hush in case Romney won Tuesday night's election.

The plan involves establishing a manned outpost about 38,000 miles from the moon in an area known as the Earth-moon libration point 2, or EML-2. This is a gravitationally stable spot, making it possible to "park" a spacecraft there, explains Wall. In other words, the station would stay put without much extra help. 


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/rumor-has-it-were-sending-humans-beyond-the-moon-2012-11#ixzz2C1KCGHOh

So, they want to put a station at the Lagrange point as a staging area; sounds real familiar don't it, Z...


seeker

[sky otter]

http://www.space.com/18380-nasa-moon-missions-obama-election.html

NASA May Unveil New Manned Moon Missions Soonby Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior
WriterDate: 07 November 2012 Time: 02:21 PM ET

NASA is serious about sending astronauts back to the moon's neighborhood and will likely unveil its ambitious plans soon now that President Barack Obama has been re-elected, experts say.

The space agency has apparently 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.

The new plans have probably already been cleared with the Obama Administration but have been kept under wraps in case Republican candidate Mitt Romney won Tuesday night's (Nov. 6) presidential election, said space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University.



"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," Logsdon told SPACE.com. (The Earth-moon L2 is a so-called libration point where the two bodies' gravitational pulls roughly balance out, allowing spacecraft to essentially park there.) [Gallery: Visions of Deep-Space Station Missions]

"They've been holding off announcing that until after the election," Logsdon added, noting that Romney had pledged to reassess and possibly revise NASA's missions and direction.



A new vision of human space exploration

In 2010, President Obama directed NASA to work toward sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. To reach such deep-space destinations, the agency is developing a huge rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) and a crew capsule named Orion.

But astronauts likely won't head straight to a space rock when SLS and Orion are ready to fly together in 2021. In the last year, word has begun leaking out that NASA wants to explore Earth-moon L2, a point in space that lies beyond the moon's far side, as a precursor.

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.

NASA officials think they can pull off such manned missions without busting their budget, which stands at $17.7 billion in the proposed 2013 federal budget.

"They're not talking about plans that imply significant budget increases," Logsdon said. "It gives a more focused use for SLS and Orion before an asteroid mission."



Moon missions coming soon?

Exploration of Earth-moon L2 could get started as early as 2021 with the first manned flight of SLS and Orion, which NASA calls Exploration Mission 2. (Exploration Mission 1 is the initial, unmanned test launch of SLS, slated for late 2017.)

"I'm not privy to the specifics of this, but one could conceive of the second SLS mission being the start of activity in cislunar space, rather than just being a lunar orbit mission," Logsdon said.

We may know soon enough. NASA higher-ups have dropped hints recently that a big announcement may indeed be in the offing before too much longer.

"We just recently delivered a comprehensive report to Congress outlining our destinations which makes clear that SLS will go way beyond low-Earth orbit to explore the expansive space around the Earth-moon system, near-Earth asteroids, the moon, and ultimately, Mars," NASA deputy chief Lori Garver said at a conference in September.

"Let me say that again: We're going back to the moon, attempting a first-ever mission to send humans to an asteroid and actively developing a plan to take Americans to Mars," Garver added.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwallor SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebookand Google+.

•50 Years of Presidential Visions for Space Exploration
•Obama Win Keeps NASA on Course — Toward an Asteroid
•The Moon: Again?
inShare.38ABOUT THE AUTHOR

[spacemaverick]

http://www.businessinsider.com/rumor-has-it-were-sending-humans-beyond-the-moon-2012-11

Do not know how true this is but I thought it was worth a mention.  It seems the Obama Administration wants to put a lunar station on the far-side of the moon.  Or maybe they will reveal that one is already there?  Interesting information.

Not only that but parking a manned outpost at EML-2?

In September, Orlando Sentinel's Mark K. Matthews reported that NASA Chief Charles Bolden had presented details of the deep space station plan to the White House. At the time, it was not clear if the Obama administration was behind it, one key setback being the hefty cost of such an ambitious mission (The agency thinks a federal budget of $17.7 billion, as requested for 2013, will help get the job done).
A large chunk of this money would go toward continued work on a very powerful rocket called the Space Launch System and the Orion space capsule, both being developed so that NASA can theoretically begin construction on the outpost by 2021.


The plan involves establishing a manned outpost about 38,000 miles from the moon in an area known as the Earth-moon libration point 2, or EML-2. This is a gravitationally stable spot, making it possible to "park" a spacecraft there, explains Wall. In other words, the station would stay put without much extra help.

Wonder what else is already parked out there?

[spacemaverick]

NASA plan but where is the money coming from?

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/06/nasa-teams-evaluating-iss-built-exploration-platform-roadmap/

Can we really believe what NASA says is going to happen if they get the funding?

[The Seeker]

bump. bump. bump,

[Elvis Hendrix]

Mate can you post the link on there please. Thanx

[stealthyaroura]

its called 'Project Horizon'  and even if they we're to plan a mission and base
my money would be on Rob Bigelow and his team.

NASA? just scraps for the sheeple to munch on.

NOTE: Project Horizon was a proposed lunar outpost OK
wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Horizon

[zorgon]

Sigh........

[stealthyaroura]

OK nasa would have you think project Horizon never got further than the drawing board

I think it's up there.
but thats just me
sigh.....

[The Seeker]

According to Jack Arneson we've been shipping stuff to the moon since before the Apollo 11 flight...


now a simple question: how many active posters have takem Zorgon's test? I have...


seeker

[sky otter]

yeah..me too way back
i found his web site with the answers and he had to make it dissappear
bwhahahahaahahah