branson is part of his own company. i mean in sure all these dudes end up meeting each other soon enough but as far as being partners, not real sure. they may have signing deals to help each other so it sounds good.
so nasa will put an outpost by the moon for future stuffs. but heres the deal russia and china want 2023 to have put bases on the moon. somewhere someone will kick this thing into over drive to leap ahead. nasa will lose funding but with so many companies in the space race its not going to be too long before nasa will have seriously have to keep up with newer space agencies.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...space-launch-system-nasa-chief-charlie-bolden
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.
NASA Chief Charlie Bolden briefed the
White House earlier this month on details of the proposal, but it's unclear whether it has the administration's support. Of critical importance is the price tag, which would certainly run into the billions of dollars.
Documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show that NASA wants to build a small outpost — likely with parts left over from the $100 billion International Space Station — at what's known as the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2, a spot about 38,000 miles from the moon and 277,000 miles from Earth.
At that location, the combined gravities of the Earth and moon reach equilibrium, making it possible to "stick" an outpost there with minimal power required to keep it in place.
To get there, NASA would use the massive rocket and space capsule that it is developing as a successor to the retired space shuttle. A first flight of that rocket is planned for 2017, and construction of the outpost would begin two years later, according to NASA planning documents.
Potential missions include the study of nearby asteroids or dispatching robotic trips to the moon that would gather moon rocks and bring them back to astronauts at the outpost. The outpost also would lay the groundwork for more-ambitious trips to Mars' moons and even Mars itself, about 140 million miles away on average.