Buzz Aldrin is recently quoted in Ars Technical's Buzz Aldrin is looking forward, not back—and he has a plan to bring NASA along:
“This T.O.R. plan may be the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Aldrin said.
The article says:
For this reason, a lot of aerospace engineers have long argued that deep space missions should be staged out of low-Earth orbit. And as Aldrin has thought about the current state of NASA and private industry, he has come around to this way of thinking, too. He therefore envisions building the “Gateway” not near the Moon but rather in low-Earth orbit. From this gathering point, missions could be assembled to go to the Moon or elsewhere. Aldrin calls this a “TransWay Orbit Rendezvous,” or T.O.R., because it represents a point of transferring from one orbit around Earth to another.
The article quotes "George Sowers, now a professor of engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, used to be the chief scientist for the rocket company United Launch Alliance (ULA)." saying:
“Buzz’s plan looks eerily similar to the first few steps in the Cislunar 1000 framework for the commercial development of cislunar space,” Sowers said. “Bottom line, Buzz’s ideas are coherent and technically feasible. In fact, I think the whole community, even some elements within NASA, is starting to get aligned.”
The article also quotes "Dallas Bienhoff, founder of the Cislunar Space Development Company, (who) worked at Boeing and developed concepts like lunar habitats, propellant depots, space tugs, and more." saying:
“Since leaving Boeing, I’ve been promoting a total reusable architecture in cislunar space,” Bienhoff said. Some of the details vary from Aldrin’s concept, but the basic elements are the same: nodes in low-Earth orbit and lunar orbit, tugs moving in between, mining propellant from the Moon and relying on smaller launch vehicles.
Aldrin's T.O.R. plan sounds like it has support from knowledgable people, and staging from LEO rather than from a near-rectilinear halo orbit near the Moon certainly sounds reasonable.
Question: Where can we read more about Buzz Aldrin's T.O.R. plan? What is it, and how does it work?
cued at 22:25 when the US president is telling the director of NASA to listen to Aldrin and others:
US President: Well I’d like to have you also listen to the other side, because some people would like to do it a different way.
NASA Director: Yes sir.
US President: Alright, so you’ll listen to Buzz and some of the other people, because they also feel — I know this has been going on for a little while and we’re so advanced, but I would like to hear the other side, right?
NASA Director: Yes sir.
