A low-cost transport system to the Moon
TransAstronautics Corporation recently proposed a plan, dubbed AstraGate, in which a transportation system would be built between Earth and the Moon. Instead of using propellant, the system would involve the transfer of energy and momentum between inbound and outbound vehicles, a feat accomplished with orbiting AstraGate stations. The system is “designed to make it affordable for middle class people to go to and from a lunar research center just as regular trans-Atlantic steamship travel allowed for rapid settlement and expanded trade between the old world and new,” according to an emailed description of the proposal. The plan was pitched to NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program in both 2018 and 2019, both times making it through to the second round but no further.
Craig Peterson, a systems engineer at TransAstronautics Corporation, said a combination of factors led to the proposal being rejected; the “sheer scale of the concepts and application of materials was something they did not think could credibly be accomplished,” he wrote to me in an email. To which he added: “We’ve shelved it for the time being.”
