Oct 012011
1975 Boeing concept drawings, copied pretty much directly from a Rockwell study from 1971, for a space station to orbit the moon and serve as a way-station for surface exploration. Max crew of 8 in an 111 km circular lunar-polar orbit. The surface operations would be sorties of four men lasting up to one month. The lunar landers (derived from orbital tugs) would be single-stage, reusable and capable of hauling a fair amount of cargo.
3 Responses to “Lunar Orbiting Space Station”
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That’s an interesting idea. But aren’t circumlunar orbits fairly unstable?
Quote:
“Stable circular lunar orbits do exist below an inclination of 39.6º”
From here
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/30nov_highorbit/
Misc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orbits
Ah, thank you. So it’s the polar orbits that cause problems.