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NASA's Deep Space Habitat Could Support the Journey To Mars and a Lunar Return (spaceflightinsider.com)
MarkWhittington writes: Back in 2012, when NASA first proposed building a deep space habitat (DSH) beyond the moon, the Obama administration took a dim view of the idea. However, fast forward over three years, and the idea has become part of the Journey to Mars program. According to a story in Spaceflight Insider, the deep space habitat will be deployed in cis-lunar space in the 2020s to test various technologies related to sending humans to Mars. The DSH could also be part of an infrastructure that would support a return to the moon should the next administration decide to go that route.
The current ISS doesn't have the additional radiation shielding that an station in cislunar space would require. Additionally, it's design and instruments are pretty well tuned for its current mission. We're far better off with a new station.
It would be great if an international cooperative effort could be made in this direction, but in the current political climate, I think that level of cooperation between the space powers is extremely unlikely. We certainly shouldn't wait until everything here is hunky dory before we move forward with exploration.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
it's means it is.
Electromagnetic shielding tech is up to this task. Per my link, "no bigger than a large desk". Now that the USA is finally spinning back up RTG production, paintable solar cells, Tesla's advancement in battery tech, etc we COULD do quite a bit more than we are.