Et maintenant on va où ? On construit la "Deep Space Gateway"

La Nasa travaille sur une station spatiale en orbite cis-lunaire qui va servir de templin pour explorer le System solaire. On l'appelle la "Deep Space Gateway".(Porte vers l'espace profond).

Vous pouvez mettre les sous-titres . . . et en français ! (Bouton paramètres puis choisir traduction automatique en Français )

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Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com
Karla Thompson - @karlaii / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIt...
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Chloe Cain - Instagram: @chloegwen2001

I don’t have to tell you that the vision of human space exploration in the Solar System has kind of stalled. Half a century ago, humans set foot on the Moon, and we haven’t been back since. Instead, we’ve thoroughly explored every cubic meter of low Earth orbit, going around and around the Earth. In fact, back in 2016, the International Space Station celebrated 100,000 orbits around the Earth.

The space shuttle was the last US vehicle capable of taking humans up into orbit, and it was retired back in 2011. So things look pretty bleak for sending humans out to explore the Solar System.

Earlier this year, however, NASA announced their next great step in their human space exploration efforts: the Deep Space Gateway. And if all goes well, we’ll see humans living and working farther from Earth, and for longer periods than ever before.

After the space shuttle program was wrapped up, NASA had a bunch of challenges facing it. Perhaps the greatest of these, was what to do with the enormous workforce that built and maintained the space shuttle fleet. Thousands were laid off, and moved to other aerospace jobs and other industries, but the space agency worked to develop the next big launch system after the shuttle.

Originally there were the Ares rockets, as part of the Constellation Program, but these were canceled and replaced with the Space Launch System. We’ve done a whole episode on the SLS, but the short version is that this new rocket will be capable of lifting more cargo into orbit than any rocket ever.

The first version, known as the Block 1 will be capable of lofting 70,000 kg into low-Earth orbit, while the upcoming Block 2 will be able to carry 130,000 kg into LEO - more than the mighty Saturn V rocket.

What are you going to do with a rocket this powerful? Launch new space telescopes, robotic missions to the outer Solar System, and put humans into space, of course.

In addition to the SLS, NASA is also working on a new capsule, known as the Orion Crew Module. This Apollo-esque capsule will be capable of carrying a crew of 4 astronauts out beyond low-Earth orbit, and returning them safely back to Earth.

But if you can send astronauts out beyond low-Earth orbit, where will they go?

The Deep Space Gateway."