Gateway.

 

 “Canada is going to the moon.”

- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada's commitment to NASA's planned Lunar Gateway space station, which will hopefully begin construction sometime in the 2020s.  As in the past, our two billion CAD contribution to the orbital platform will take the form of a smart robotic manipulator - the Canadarm3, of course - which will be composed of a primary large-scale arm and a smaller arm similar to the current DEXTRE unit in use on the ISS.

 

I confess that I'm a bit conflicted regarding the Gateway Station*.  On one hand, I'd prefer to see more of a focus on Mars, in spite of the recent resurgence of interest in lunar exploration, as demonstrated by the Chinese Chang'e 4 lunar probe landing on the dark side at the start of this year, and a planned return to the Moon by NASA.  However, the name "Gateway" is well chosen - a station in lunar orbit would also be a useful stepping stone for Martian exploration while providing the perfect overwatch for lunar missions, and also allow for the development of dedicated vacuum shuttles for ISS-Gateway travel, which would be far more efficient than the hybrid craft that have made the Earth-Moon circuit in the past.

Ultimately, it's important to be sensible about things like this. To paraphrase Bachman-Turner Overdrive**, any space exploration is good space exploration. Everything we do moves us forward on the path of exploration, and, like the song says, we should take what we can get.

- Sid

* All other issues aside, I do think it's a cool name for a space station, no offense to the ISS.

** 70s band from Winnipeg, for the younger members of our audience.  The song being misquoted here is You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.