Space Advocates Need To Know When To Shut Up!
NASA recently announced their Gateway station for beyond LEO exploration to the wider press. This is not news to the space advocate community with articles going back to December of last year. Even so, now is the time when this concept will be received by the politicians as "new". Soon, they will be introduced to the Gateway as either being a part of their plan or something which challenges it. Many space advocates have complained that the central element of NASA's beyond exploration plan - the Space Launch System - has no payloads, or costs so much that no payloads can possibly be developed to fly on it. The obvious exception to this has been the Orion crew capsule, which is simply seen as too expensive compared to commercial crew offerings. Congress could see the Gateway station as the answer to this criticism. That would be a good thing - whether you like the Space Launch System or not. The reason is simple: there's nothing else. Up to now, the plan h...