The next astronauts to work on the moon will likely live in larger habitats and drive sporty new rovers capable of two-week treks, NASA officials said Thursday.
Rather than assembling a lunar outpost over time from a multitude of small, separately launched modules, NASA is now hoping to land up to three large habitats on fewer flights to build a beachhead on the moon, the space agency said.
Doug Cooke, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration systems, said that the space agency's revised lunar plan calls for the launching of larger habitats to the moon on unmanned cargo flights.
That way, the first new lunar astronauts could begin to reap science rewards faster than if they had to haul smaller habitat sections and hardware to the moon on each flight, then combine them into a larger base to support long-duration expeditions. [+]
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário