NASA recently announced plans to construct the Lunar Gateway, which is to serve as a temporary base for operations on the moon and Mars. It’s part of a comprehensive initiative, if you take NASA at its word. It’s even got some spiffy images to back it up.

Here’s the thing. The Lunar Gateway makes almost no sense for mission purposes. Mandating a scientific outpost over the moon in order to study it (and Mars, for some reason) offers no real benefits compared to an actu...