VIDEO: ESA Lunar space station

Not much more than could be tagged from Orbiter Sim, but interesting. Any idea what ESA's timeframe may be?

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for those who are interested in Europe/ESA exploration programs, today ESA has sent me the link of their public Exploration Strategy website:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Space_Exploration_Strategy/

about the Lunar Space Station, it's a GREAT idea because we can have:

1. very much SAFER lunar missions, then, much lower lunar missions' LOC risks!

2. more than one mission per crew!

3. better and longer missions with more exploration time!

4. an ISS-like (or better!) international (NASA, ESA, Russia, China, etc.) cooperation for lunar missions and exploration, lunar modules and vehicles development and manufacturing, missions' funding (to avoid, also, a duplications of efforts) and international (and easier) rescue missions (if something goes wrong) especially if all new NASA, ESA, Russia, China, etc. spacecrafts will adopts the same androgynal LIDS docking system/hatch!

everything already explained over TWO years ago in this article: http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/009_LSS.html

a further advantage of a LOI+TEI capable (and remote-controlled) CSTS, is to use it as "lunar cargo return"... in other words, the crews running on the LSS around the lunar orbit may land several times with reusable Altair (or the ESA version) and, when the lunar samples will be enough to fill a cargo-return CSTS, they can send several mT of them with just ONE unmanned cargo-return capsule, rather than bring back to Earth only 200 kg. a time with the astronauts (that's a giant waste of time, money and useless risks for the astronauts!)

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In the 2020s basically. The Thales Alenia Space presentation on it gives a 2024 date.

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NASA asks industrial design students to develop manned lunar rovers:

http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-%2526-space/article/2008-08/habitats-humanity

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