The lunar gateway: a shortcut to Mars?

Nasa plans to put a module in orbit around the moon as a springboard for missions to the red planet – and beyondSpaceflight will mark an important milestone this year – when Nasa celebrates the 50th anniversary of US astronauts reaching the moon. In December 1968 Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders – on Apollo 8 – swept over the lunar surface and captured bright blue images of Earth rising above the grey plains of the moon. It was one of the most dramatic space missi