NASA Wants to Send Astronauts Beyond the Moon

NASA Wants to Send Astronauts Beyond the Moon

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Top NASA officials have picked a leading candidate for the agency’s next major mission: construction of a new outpost that would send astronauts farther from Earth than at any time in history. The so-called “gateway spacecraft” would hover in orbit on the far side of the moon, support a small astronaut crew and function as a staging area for future missions to the moon and Mars. At 277,000 miles from Earth, the outpost would be far more remote than the current space station, which orbits a little more than 200 miles above Earth. The distance raises complex questions of how to protect astronauts from the radiation of deep space — and rescue them if something goes wrong.