'Lunar-Bus' Launch-Receive space platform concept

摘要

In the future hundreds of years, the exploration of the moon will become one of the most important human activities, and the travel between earth and moon will be more and more frequently. However, up to now, the cost of space travel is enormously high. To deliver 1 kg of payload into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) , 10, 000 U.S. dollars will be cost and 10 times the price to the Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO). If the target is moon much more will be cost. In addition, the payloads human can launched to leave the Earth per year is limited, about 1,000 tons. Under such circumstances, the traditional transportation methods could hardly satisfy the future requirement. Some new methods must be found!Based on above scenarios, this article presents a new concept of space transportation system- "Lunar-Bus",which is a combination of "space tether system" concept and "transfer station" concept. It is hopefully to reduce the transportation cost to 1/150 of that today. The advantages of this new system and the key technical problems we may encounter with both have been brought forward in this article too.