This is true, however there may be a usefulness in the future (let me emphasize that it is in the future) for a way station so that a small shuttle can take people and equipment down to and up from the Moon.

A two-hour shuttle from a lunar-orbit way station does not need the mass of living quarters or as much life support, compared to the three-day journey between the Earth and lunar orbit. A shuttle designed for transit from low Earth orbit (LEO) to lunar orbit would not need a heat shield for atmospheric entry if a small shuttle were used for the six-hour trip from the Earth’s surface to LEO and back again. Three different specialized craft and two orbital way-stations (one in Earth orbit and the other in lunar orbit) could be used to more efficiently transport people between the Earth’s surface and the lunar surface than an Apollo-like system.

This kind of infrastructure is probably a decade or so away — after we get back to the Moon. It is not appropriate for early development of our return to the Moon, in which case an Apollo-like system may be more cost effective for early exploration. If the LOP-G is a good idea, it will be that good idea sometime in the future.

Right now, we do not seem to have any immediate plan for LOP-G, other than use it for a hypothetical future Mars mission and to use it as an excuse for the SLS.

As it happened, SLS designed (and now LOP-G will be designed) before the Mars mission is designed, which drives the design for the end mission. The proper way to design a system is to start with the requirements of the final use of the system, but SLS was designed on speculation, and LOP-G is likewise also being designed on speculation — and with the requirement that SLS be used, even as a less expensive launcher becomes available. This is backwards thinking and is not worthy of the (once) great NASA and its workforce, which knows better than this.

Only a government project could be managed so poorly for so long.

But, if it is deemed necessary to assemble and use a multi-piece craft in cis-lunar space prior to going to Mars then the smart way of doing this would be to do it inexpensively by launching the pieces on FHs and assembling it in LEO first followed by pushing the assembled craft to a high cislunar orbit (e.g. DRO). For a modest investment, the FH could be human-rated and is sufficiently capable of sending either the Orion or Dragon capsules to that craft / station.

Would you rather trust your payload to a launcher which launches several times per year (which is a reasonable expectation going forward for Falcon Heavy), or one that only goes up once every 12-18 months (which is basically SLS’s schedule for the mid 2020’s)?

Lemuel Vargas asked, “How many Falcon Heavy [sic] has beeen constructed to date?”

SpaceX has two more launches of the Falcon Heavy scheduled for this year. By the time SLS launches once in 2023, I expect the rocket will have flown dozens of times. And the cost of all those launches will still be less than what it will cost NASA to simply build the two mobile launchers (one of which they will abandon after one use) that just roll SLS to the launchpad.

SLS is a disgrace. It does not take much research or intellectual honesty to see that. And to avoid this reality one has to be willfully blind.

How many Falcon Heavy has been constructed to date? Think there is only 1 rocket constructed. When those launches becomes monotonous and they began to cut costs so as to save money (it being a private initiative), then the possibility of a catastrophic rocket launch would become greater and then no Falcon Heavy rocket then.

The ISS was assembled from modules half the mass of those that Falcon Heavy could launch. The ISS has a mass of around 450 tons. What’s been learned from the ISS should be applied on building a Mars or Moon cycler like spacecraft next. There’s no value with using astronauts as Geiger counters around the Moon.

I have a few questions of fact?

Is your plan the most cost-effective means of establishing the Gateway?

Pray tell, which piece of the Gateway is so large that it couldn’t fit within the fairing of the Falcon Heavy?

Forget the TLI capability of the FH, why couldn’t the Falcon Heavy be used to assemble the entire Gateway in LEO prior to it being pushed by another vehicle to the DRO orbit?

Is the Falcon Heavy sufficiently capable of pushing an Orion capsule to the DRO orbit? How much would it cost to have the FH human rated after the Falcon 9 Block 5 is human-rated?

Have the alternate, more cost-effective approaches to accessing the Moon and Mars been openly reviewed and compared to the SLS-Orion-DSG-Someone’s lander architecture?

How much will the DSG cost compared to a Lunar COTS approach to developing and operating a XEUS-scale lander?

Finally, after having personally acknowledged to me that the Gateway is unnecessary for lunar access but cargo & crew modules and propellant could be handed off directly between a launch vehicle and a lunar lander, why then do you persist in saying that the Gateway should be used to access the lunar surface?

I was reading elsewhere (Wikipedia) that they want to use SLS/Orion because of the propulsion on the Orion system. Some segments of the LOP-G wouldn’t need SLS/Orion because they would have their own propulsion.

NASA has been working on components of this for a long time now, with at least six companies providing possible components.

It looks like a LEO/cislunar tug would be very useful.

In any case, many companies have their own preferred activities and since the LOP-G will take a very long time to build if it relies on SLS/Orion, it could be that commercial space renders the project obsolete.

SLS/Orion are a waste of money but in the grand scheme of things, its just a drop in the bucket. For the long term, space cadets should be more concerned with commercials space getting the support it needs in terms of reduced regulatory burdens, support for private property rights, and a friendly NASA.

But, the US hasn’t flown an astronaut in a US spacecraft in going on 7 years.

An absolutely pathetic effort.

That says it all. Not “we have a plan which requires a rocket with these capabilities,” but “we have this rocket so now we need a plan which will be uniquely met by that rocket.”