Spaceflight will mark an important milestone this year – when Nasa celebrates the 50th anniversary of US astronauts reaching the moon. In December 1968 Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders – on Apollo 8 – swept over the lunar surface and captured bright blue images of Earth rising above the grey plains of the moon. It was one of the most dramatic space missions ever flown. Manned landings followed, but after a few years, the US lost interest in lunar space flights.

But now Nasa has revealed plans to return to the Moon and has asked European scientists and industry leaders to join the agency in a bold plan aimed at rebooting humanity’s conquest of the solar system - in the form of an international manned station that will orbit the moon within the next decade.

The proposed station, the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway – known as Gateway – will allow astronauts to develop techniques that will open up the lunar surface to exploration and exploitation. At the same time, the station will help humans hone survival skills in deep space in preparation for future manned missions to Mars, says Nasa.

Taking part in the station’s construction would cost Europe more than £1bn and a decision on whether to become involved will be taken at a meeting of European science ministers next year. If ministers give the go-ahead, the European Space Agency (Esa) – of which Britain is a key member – would then join other international partners that Nasa is recruiting to its Gateway project. These include the space agencies of Russia, Canada and Japan.

“Essentially, Gateway will be a robotic outpost that will be visited by groups of astronauts – initially for weeks and then for months at a time,” says David Parker, director of human spaceflight and robotic exploration for Esa and a keen supporter of the project. “They will learn how to survive in deep space and deal with problems such as radiation and meteorites. At the same time they will also direct robot craft that will explore the moon’s surface.”

A go-ahead for Gateway would also bring to an end the hiatus in manned space exploration that has lasted for almost a decade. Since the grounding of the space shuttle, human spaceflights have been restricted to launches of Russia’s Soyuz space capsule, which is used to ferry crew and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), and the few missions taken by taikonauts on China’s fledgling spacecraft.

Gateway should change that – and it will do so by taking advantage of a major advance in US space engineering which will occur when Nasa begins flights with its new deep-space capsule, Orion, and its launcher, the Space Launch System in a few years. These will form the core components of Gateway along with modules similar to those now used as stores and crew quarters on the ISS (see box), though Nasa stresses Gateway will be considerably smaller than their current Earth-orbiting space station.

And key to operation of their lunar station will be the extraction, from lunar soil, of minerals, chemicals, and – most important – water. “Recent evidence suggests comets and asteroids have bombarded the moon for billions of years, depositing water – in the form of ice – on to its polar regions,” said Mahesh Anand, reader in planetary science and exploration at the Open University.

Scientists like Anand believe it should be possible to use that water to turn the moon into a refuelling station for long-term missions to Mars and beyond. Ice would be harvested, melted and electrolysed – using power generated by solar panels – into its hydrogen and oxygen components. “You could then use that hydrogen and oxygen as liquid propellents,” added Anand. “That is what powered the space shuttle’s main engines after all. Then you could use the moon as a refuelling post to power spaceships to Mars.”

It remains a far-off goal. For a start, astronomers do not have precise details of the most promising places to find water on the moon. Finding those sources will not be easy, but not impossible – thanks to Gateway. It will orbit the moon from a height of a few hundred miles and from there astronauts will control robot rovers remotely and send them trundling over the lunar surface to pinpoint areas rich in water ice. Samples could even be sent back to the space station by unmanned spacecraft.

Scientists at Esa are already working with Canadian and Japanese space agencies to prepare a robot mission called Heracles, which would travel to the moon sometime in the next decade and which would use the Gateway as a halfway house to store lunar samples before being sent back to Earth. “It will be much easier to drive a robot rover from a height of only a few hundred miles above the moon than from the Earth which is 250,000 miles away,” says Anand. “It will take only a fraction of a second to send a signal and get a response. By contrast it would take several seconds if you are on Earth, making the control of a lunar rover much, much more difficult.”

European astronauts recently guided an automated rover on Earth using controls in the ISS – which orbits the Earth at roughly the same height that Gateway would orbit the moon. The technology is therefore already well tested, says Esa.

“The moon has lain virtually undisturbed for the last 4.5bn years,” says Parker. “It is a museum of the history of our solar system. And yes, we visited it when we briefly landed Apollo spacecraft there. However, that was the equivalent of going to a museum, heading straight to the gift shop and then leaving. It is the dusty corners of a museum where you find the really interesting stuff – and that is where we are going to go with Gateway.”

This point is backed by James Carpenter, a member of Esa’s lunar exploration team. “The major scientific impact of Gateway will undoubtedly come from the way it will open up access to the lunar surface,” he says. “However, there are many other areas of research that will benefit.

Apollo took astronauts into deep space but the missions lasted a few days. We are talking of spending months at Gateway

“We will be able to study the effects of radiation on human physiology; we will be able to collect dust particles that come from asteroids or comets or possibly objects outside our solar system. We will be able to study the interaction of the sun and the moon with Earth’s magnetosphere. Gateway would also be ideal for launching tiny CubeSat satellites and other devices that could open up exploration of the solar system.”

Carpenter says Esa recently held a workshop to gauge European scientists’ interest in joining Gateway. “Around 250 came along and since then we have received a substantial number of proposals for doing science on the station. There is tremendous enthusiasm in Europe for this project. It is a real opportunity to do the kinds of science that have not been possible before now.”

Astronomers are also keen to use Gateway as a platform for assembling deep-space observatories, in particular to study low-frequency radio waves that could give new insights into the early universe not long after its big bang birth 13.8bn years ago. These low-frequency waves are difficult to observe near Earth because of interference from human sources.

In addition, Gateway’s location will take it far outside Earth’s protective magnetic field and will leave astronauts exposed to far more intense radiation than is experienced on the ISS. This will provide key opportunities to study the long-term impact of radiation on humans in deep space. “We will ultimately translate that experience toward human missions to Mars,” says William Gerstenmaier, an associate administrator at Nasa headquarters in Washington.

This point is backed by Parker. “We have to learn to work for long periods of time up there. The Apollo missions took astronauts into deep space but they only lasted a few days. We are talking of spending months at Gateway in the end and if you want to go to Mars, you will need to spend years in deep space. So we have got to learn to live in our backyard – near the moon – before going on longer journeys.”

The critical point about the Gateway project is that it does not depend on new or untested technologies, says Carpenter. “A huge expertise was built up during the design and assembly of the International Space Station. We know the risks involved in building a space station and the technologies that will ensure that its construction will go smoothly. That makes us very confident that Gateway will happen and that it will work.”

One important question remains, however. If Europe does agree to join Nasa in Gateway and be involved in the exploration of the lunar surface, would a European astronaut – possibly a British one – get to fly to the moon in the near future? Parker is cautious. “That is something we would aim for but [it] will depend on negotiations with our international partners.”

In short, we may have to wait a bit longer to see a Brit heading to the moon.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An artist’s rendering of the Orion spacecraft above Earth. Photograph: European Space Agency

Gateway and Orion: giant steps are what you take…



The key component of the project Gateway mission will be the Orion capsule now being built by space engineers. It is designed to take a crew of four people beyond Earth orbit and into deep space. Orion has two key components: first, a command module, to carry astronauts. This is being built by Lockheed Martin. The second component will beis Orion’s a service module which will provide power and propulsion for the main craft. It is being developed by the European Space Agency (Esa.

Orion’s first manned flight is scheduled to take place inby 2023. Once in operation, capsules will be blasted into space on the US’s new generation of high-powered rockets, the Space Launch System which is designed to send heavy payloads towards the moon and planets. SLS rockets will also transport the modules that will be assembled to form Gateway in lunar orbit. These will be based on the modules – such as Esa’s Columbus module – that hold stores, contain research equipment and provide sleeping accommodation for crew now working on the International Space Station.

Last week, Nasa announced that Gateway would be fitted with two modules to house astronauts, one to be provided by the United States and the other by Nasa’s international partners. Conditions will be cramped, nevertheless. As currently envisaged, Gateway will have 1,942 cubic feet of habitable volume, compared to the 13,696 cubic feet on the ISS.

“Gateway modules will also have to be much lighter than those on ISS because they will have to be blasted much further into space,” says Esa director David Parker. “In addition, the modules will be moved around in space using ion propulsion rockets rather than chemical rockets. The fuel consumption of ion engines is much lower than that of chemical rockets. Versions of ion engines with the kind of thrust we will need for Gateway have not yet been built but are under development and should be ready in plenty of time for the station’s construction.”