NASA: Let's Build a Space Station on the Far Side of the Moon

Everyone needs something audacious on their wish list. NASA's is a space station not 200 miles about the Earth, as the International Space Station is, but an installation 277,000 miles away, on the far side of the moon.

Over the weekend, the Orlando Sentinel reported that NASA administrator Charles Bolden had briefed the Obama administration on a plan to build such an outpost that would travel to the Earth-moon Lagrange Point 2, or L2. The Lagrange Points are spots in our planet's neighborhood where the gravities of the Earth and the moon cancel each other out. L2 is an ideal spot for a station, since you wouldn't need much energy to hold the thing in place.

Sending astronauts so far from Earth could be a major stepping stone toward sending them further distances, like to Mars. For one thing, building this mission would mean NASA would have to learn how to keep astronauts safe in deep space. An L2 outpost would lie beyond the Earth's protective magnetosphere, putting astronauts in much more danger from radiation and thus required new shielding. And if NASA needed to execute a rescue mission, 277,000 miles is a bit more challenging than 200.

According to the Sentinel, it's unclear whether the president would support such a mission. And like all things NASA, the cost is an enormous issue. There's no clear price tag on an L2 space station, but at the very least it would require NASA to actually build the Space Launch System that would blast its Orion capsule (now called the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle) into orbit. The agency is congressionally mandated to do so, but it's unclear whether the project will ever truly be funded.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/nasa-lets-build-a-space-station-on-the-far-side-of-the-moon-13033075?src=rss

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