NASA says it’s building a gateway to the Moon—critics say it’s just a gate

Enlarge / A rendering of NASA's proposed lunar gateway. (credit: NASA)

It is the year 2026. A veteran astronaut, Nicole Mann, leads her crew of four through a hatch from the Orion spacecraft onto a small space station near the Moon. Inside, it smells something like a new car. Outside, all is splendor. Below the station, half of the Moon reflects the sunlight-shimmering, silvery, and silent. The depths of space blacken the other half of the orb. In the distance, a blue and green Earth also basks in the Sun's glow. Humanity's cradle and its future among the stars share the vista.

The 49-year-old Mann, who goes by the call sign "Duke," begins a series of communications checks. There is a two-second delay before Mission Control responds with cheers and high fives. For decades after Apollo, humans had remained confined in low-Earth orbit. No more. After Mann's crew spends a dozen days outfitting the new "Gateway" in orbit around the Moon, NASA will finally have a toehold in deep space again. From here, humans may soon go down to the lunar surface or make final preparations for missions to Mars.

Such a future scenario, at least, is what the space agency wants Congress, the White House, and the American public to imagine when envisioning a lunar space station, which NASA proposes to build in the 2020s. "I think about it as a port in space, a dry dock for activities that come and go," said Jason Crusan, a senior NASA official from headquarters overseeing development of the Gateway.

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