As NASA sets its sights on returning to the Moon and preparing for Mars, it is laying the foundation for human exploration deeper into the solar system by creating an orbital outpost near the Moon called the Gateway. While orbiting the Moon, it will be a temporary home and office for astronauts as well as docking points which will serve as vehicle parking and an entrance into the spacecraft itself. The Gateway will give NASA and its partners access to more of the lunar surface than ever before, supporting both human and robotic missions.

NASA has already started working on the Gateway. The 1st major component will provide power and propulsion which is targeted to launch in 2022. After it's established, NASA will launch 4 astronauts on the SLS and Orion with two more sections and continuing each year after that with new parts until it is fully constructed with a target of 2026. NASA plans on having the Gateway built within 5-6 launches rather than the 34 it took to build the ISS. The powerful SLS will deliver the components and Orion will be the tug that delivers those components for assembly. Together, Orion , SLS , and Gateway represent the core of NASA’s sustainable infrastructure for human exploration.

During the second launch one of the components will be the small living & working area for the Gateway called the Habitation module. While the ISS is the size 6 bedroom house, the interior of the Gateway will only be the size of a studio apartment where astronauts will live and work up to 3 months at a time. Your task in this activity is to design and build a skeletal structure of the habitat module that can support as much weight as possible.

The International Space Station is like a big house and laboratory in low Earth orbit where astronauts live and work. Today we will build a model of the ISS using recyclable materials!

When it comes to making major repairs to equipment in space, astronauts get a lot of support from engineers on Earth both before getting started and during the actual repair process. Sometimes they have to improvise and use what they have available to them in new ways. (Astronauts do not have the luxury of running out to the hardware store to get a much needed part in a pinch in between resupply missions.)

Andy Weir’s “The Martian” places astronaut Mark Watney in survival mode on Mars. To endure the Red Planet’s climate, atmosphere, and terrain, Watney has to “hack,” or repurpose, the equipment he has available. Due to his clever perseverance, and “hacking,” astronaut Watney (spoiler alert) survives.

Sound far-fetched? Well, it is certainly in keeping with the long NASA record of working around problems and repurposing equipment to achieve mission success. NASA's even done this already on Mars. In July of 2004, NASA’s Mars rover, Spirit, suffered a problem with its right, front wheel. NASA needed to find a way to keep the rover moving or its mission would have been over. After some hacking, engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory found that they could drive the rover backwards on five of its six wheels. Essentially, Spirit was hauling its sixth wheel behind it like an anchor. Spirit continued exploring Mars for another 5 years, until it got stuck in the sand and was unable to collect enough solar energy to survive. Not bad for a mission that was supposed to last for only 90 days!

Perhaps the best known hack performed by NASA occurred in April 1970 during the Apollo 13 mission. When the spacecraft was approximately 205,000 miles from Earth, an oxygen tank explosion in the Service Module changed the goal of the mission from landing on the Moon, to getting the crew home alive. The three astronauts onboard, Commander Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise, used the lunar module as a “lifeboat.” But the lunar module was only designed to support 2 crewmembers for the short trip to and from the Moon’s surface. One of the critical problems this caused was the build up of carbon dioxide from the crew’s breath. In the Apollo spacecraft a supply of lithium hydroxide (LiOH) canisters was used to “scrub” the carbon dioxide from the cabins; however, the canisters for the LiOH in the command module were cube-shaped, while those in the lunar module were cylindrical. With the command module out of operation and the supply of LiOH canisters in the lunar module quickly running out, the astronauts had to fit a “square peg into a round hole.” Support crews on the ground came up with a way for the astronauts to hack the command module LiOH canister with materials they had available, to make them work in the lunar module. Lovell, Swigert, and Haise made it home safely on April 17, 1970.