At this point, I just want to get there. Thinking big is for later, when we know more about what we are going to do there.

As with starting up a company, doing too much too soon can cost too much for too little return. Thinking too big too soon is what killed NASA’s Mars mission a quarter century ago.

It seems to me that one of the problems with Gateway is that it is thinking too big too soon. Do we need it yet, and if so, do we need it where we plan to put it? I think the first answer is “no” and the second answer is “it will be later rather than sooner before we know where to put it.”

I fully agree.

They could even add in a Bigalow module to have a science area and a larger living area for a longer missions.
Lander+Bigalow+Orion/Dragon/Starliner.

If they make a re-usable lander they have to make a way to refuel it while in orbit around the Moon.
Each Bigalow module could have either two triangular solar panels or one rectangular panel.

The first mission could even leave the Bigalow module and orbiter behind.
The second could take a 6 way docking collar and another Bigalow module plus enough environmental equipment to handle 6 Bigalow modules.
The third could send up another Bigalow module as a refueling station and filled with lander fuel.
And so on, until we have everything we need in orbit and one or two landers.

All with rockets we have now. Tech we have now. Pretty much with equipment right ‘off the shelf’.

The Saturn V was more powerful than anything that we will have for this Moon mission. This is one reason why NASA has broken up the launches of the lander and the manned spacecraft. We do not have the capability to repeat Apollo exactly as it was done, and Orion is about all the manned spacecraft that we can have in the allotted time. There really isn’t enough time, and there certainly isn’t enough budget to do much more.

Robert,
This looks like a case of “been there, done that,” as Obama called the objective of the Constellation program. However, the difference between Apollo and Artemis is that Artemis seems to be based upon the Moon as a resource rather than a victory over an enemy. We haven’t been to a Moon with the intention of doing resource mining. Artemis is new.

Artemis looks more like what We the Public had envisioned for Apollo, as evidenced by much of the science fiction of the time. We thought that Apollo would prove that the Moon was a worthwhile place to go and that Congress and NASA would continue to go there. The goal of early Artemis flights seems to be to find out how to use the water-ice at the lunar south pole. This is a very worthwhile goal, and should help to stimulate commercial space operations. That NASA is now hiring commercial exploration missions is a sign that there will be many commercial space projects in the near future.

I see this sole-source contract as a good thing. It shows that NASA has a sense of urgency again. It plans to get this done in the time allotted and is looking for ways to do it.

I am not convinced that Gateway is the correct way to go. It seems to me that a different type of lunar orbit rendezvous would work better. In my version, the lunar lander is sent into lunar orbit on a first rocket, Orion/Dragon/Starliner launches on a second rocket and docks with the lander in lunar orbit, the lander lands, the lander returns to lunar orbit and docks with Orion/Dragon/Starliner, which then returns to Earth. No distraction by or diversion to Gateway is necessary, and we should be able to do it with rockets we have or are developing.

If SLS (or an equivalent heavy-launch rocket) is not available to propel the two spacecraft to trans-lunar orbit directly after launch then the lunar lander and Orion/Dragon/Starliner could each dock in low Earth orbit with an upper-stage booster launched on an additional rocket (third and fourth rockets). This would be more of an Earth orbit/lunar orbit rendezvous mission, but the necessary techniques are well known and well practiced, so the risks are low.

These aren’t elegant solutions, but they may be more efficient and less costly than Gateway.

We have five years in which to develop the lunar lander, to modify anything that needs updating for this mission, to write all the software that is needed to do these tasks, and to perform test flights.

As commercial space companies develop better rockets (e.g. New Armstrong and Super Heavy), the methods and techniques to land on and return from the Moon will advance to reflect the better hardware.

Why not just make a larger Lunar orbiter?
It could be set up with all the experiments you want for that trip. One of the problems with a permanent Lunar orbiter is it needs resupplied for each mission. The experiments need changed out. The human waste needs removed.

Good odds of this, I’d say. None of the Democrat presidential contenders seems to have an interest in spaceflight, and there aren’t any Democratic space proponents with visible stature in DC other than perhaps Lori Garver, So it’d probably be 2022 or 2023 before a new administration would even start speaking about shutting down the SLS-Orion-Gateway scheme.

Not to say that SOG is especially wonderful. I actually like the idea of returning to the moon in a big way, but I’d prefer a decent sized manned base at the south pole rather than an expensive, fragile, limited capability tin can orbiting the moon.