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Horizon Lunar Outpost
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In 1959 the US Army completed a plan for a manned military outpost on the moon. The Horizon lunar outpost was said to be necessary to protect United States interests on the moon; to conduct moon-based surveillance of the earth and space, to act as a communications relay, and to serve as a base for exploration of the moon. The permanent outpost would cost $6 billion and become operational in December 1966 with 12 soldiers.
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Lunex Lunar Expedition
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The US Air Force Lunex project was begun in 1958. The final lunar expedition plan of 1961 was for a 21-airman underground Air Force base on the moon by 1968 at a total cost of $ 7.5 billion.
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Apollo Lunar Landing
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The project that succeeded in putting a man on the moon. Apollo probably could have achieved its goal a little quicker by using a 2-man capsule for a direct flight. But all of the decisions made in the seven months after go-ahead proved basically correct. The Apollo program was not a hoax, but the real thing.
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DLB Lunar Base
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The N1 draft project of 1962 spoke of 'establishment of a lunar base and regular traffic between the earth and the moon'. Korolev raised the matter informally at tea with Chief Designer of rocket complexes Vladimir Pavlovich Barmin, head of GSKB SpetsMash (State Union Design Bureau of Special Machine-Building). Barmin was interested in pursuing the subject, but how could such a base be placed on the moon. 'You just design the base', Korolev assured him, 'and I'll figure out how to get it there'. The project ran 12 years and was known to SpetsMash as the 'Long-term Lunar Base' (DLB) and referred to jokingly by detractors as 'Barminograd'. It would have put a semi-permanent nine-man base on the moon by 1975.
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L3
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The Soviet system, consisting of the LOK Lunar Orbiter and LK Lunar Lander, that was to have beaten the American Apollo program to the moon. The L3 design authorized for development in August 1964 was supposed to be capable of accomplishing the mission in a single N1 launch. The late start - over three years after Apollo - and delays in development of the spacecraft and booster meant that the Soviets were still years behind when Apollo 11 made the first moon landing in 1969. Charged with fulfilling the Party's orders, rather pointless testing of L3 components continued, but by 1972 any Soviet manned lunar landing would have used the more capable L3M.
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Project Selena
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Bono's enormous ROMBUS booster could fly all the way to the lunar surface and back if low Earth orbit (LEO) rendezvous and propellant transfer were used. He therefore proposed using the booster to establish a lunar base.
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AES Lunar Base
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AES (Apollo Extension Systems) was planned as the first American lunar base. It would involve minimal modification of Apollo hardware. The Apollo CSM would be modified for long duration lunar orbit storage. Two versions of the Apollo LM would be developed: the LM Taxi, and the LM Shelter. Surface mobility would be provided by an open cab lunar rover within the 2050 kg lunar surface payload capability of the LM Shelter. This preliminary base would require two Saturn V launches to allow two astronauts to explore the vicinity of their LM Shelter over a two week period. Development was actually begun in May 1966 with plans for a first mission in March 1970. But subsequent cutbacks and then cancellation of further Saturn V production led to the project being completely abandoned in June 1968.
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ALSS Lunar Base
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The ALSS (Apollo Logistics Support System) Lunar Base would require a new development, the LM Truck, to allow delivery of up to 4100 kg in payload to the lunar surface. This would allow larger surface shelters and MOLAB pressurized roving laboratories to be landed on the moon, allowing two astronauts to make extensive exploration of selected areas of the lunar surface. No elements of ALSS were funded for development prior to the cancellation of further Saturn V production in June 1968.
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KLE Complex Lunar Expedition
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Chelomei's design for a lunar base, studied in 1964 to 1974 as a UR-700-launched predecessor or alternative to Barmin's DLB.
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Lunar Exploration Program 1968
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In January 1968, Bellcomm, NASA's Apollo project management advisor, proposed a four-phase program for exploration of the lunar surface using Apollo and Apollo-derived hardware. A total of 12 lunar landing missions would be conducted between 1969 and 1976, the final two being dual-launch missions with the Apollo crews landing on the lunar surface near a previously-landed payload lander. The supplies, lunar flying vehicles, and rovers delivered by the separate lander would allow two-week explorations of the lunar surface. This was the final iteration of the AES Lunar Base before further Saturn V production was cancelled.
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L3M
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Follow-on to the L3, a two N1-launch manned lunar expedition designed and developed in the Soviet Union between 1969 and 1974. It was planned to land the L3M on the moon for two week exploration missions after the American Apollo program was wound up. The L3M was cancelled together with the L3 in 1974, effectively ending Soviet plans for exploration of the moon.
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LEK Lunar Expeditionary Complex
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Although the N1, L3, and DLB projects were cancelled, Glushko still considered the establishment of a moon base to be a primary goal for his country. While the Americans had achieved the first moon landing, they had retreated to earth orbit and cancelled further Apollo flights. There existed an opportunity, through establishment of a permanent Soviet moon base, to steal the lead in the space race. Analysis of the results of previous unmanned and manned lunar missions indicated that the moon was suited for a variety of 'special investigations. A permanent manned lunar expeditionary complex (LEK) would be required to accomplish this. In 1974 Glushko proposed having an LEK Lunar Base in place by 1980 using his Vulkan booster. The Soviet leadership saw it differently, and in 1976 prohibited further work and deferred any further lunar base research to the 21st Century.
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LESA Lunar Base
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LESA (Lunar Exploration System for Apollo) represented the ultimate lunar base concept studied by NASA prior to the cancellation of further Saturn V production in June 1968. LESA would use a new Lunar Landing Vehicle to land payloads of from10,500 kg to 25,000 kg on the lunar surface with a single Saturn V launch. Extended CSM and LM Taxi hardware derived from the basic Apollo program would allow crews to be rotated to the ever-expanding, and eventually permanent lunar base. A nuclear reactor would provide power.
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JSC Moon Base 1984
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In 1984 a Johnson Space Center team lad by Barney Roberts took NASA's first look at a return to the moon after the shuttle was in service. It anticipated later studies in using NASA's planned infrastructure - the shuttle, a shuttle-derived heavy lift vehicle, space station, and orbital transfer vehicle to build a permanent 18-crew moon base in 2005-2015.
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Outpost on the Moon
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Former astronaut Sally Ride was asked to head a task force to formulate a new NASA strategic plan in August 1986. The Ride Report was issued in August 1987, and proposed establishment of an Outpost on the Moon using Shuttle and Space Station hardware that was expected to be already available by the late 1990's. The Ride Report would be fleshed out by NASA in the 90-day study's Lunar Outpost two years later.
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Energia Lunar Expedition
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In 1988, with development of the Buran space shuttle completed, Glushko ordered new studies on a lunar based that could be established using the Energia booster. The more modest lunar expeditions would spend up to 10 days on the surface. Eventually the lunar regolith would be mined for He-3 for use in nuclear fusion power plants on earth.
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Lunar Evolution Base 1989
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In August 1989 NASA's Office of Exploration completed a two-year, NASA-wide plan for future manned space exploration. This was almost immediately preempted by the 90-Day Study issued in response to President Bush's Human Exploration Initiative speech in November 1989. The original plan foresaw establishment of a lunar base at Mare Tranquilitatis by 2005 using Shuttle-C boosters, spacecraft assembly at Space Station Freedom, and modifications of the Orbital Transfer Vehicle.
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Lunar Outpost
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When President Bush announced a new Space Exploration Initiative in 1989, NASA launched a 90-day study to pull together its current thinking on creation of a lunar base as a prelude and testbed for expeditions to Mars. The resulting project would cost $300 billion and take 20 years to place an 8 crew base at Lacus Veris. Even space enthusiasts were underwhelmed and the concept sank out of sight.
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First Lunar Outpost
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The First Lunar Outpost was a very comprehensive moon base study carried out by NASA's Office of Exploration in 1992. FLO was intended as a benchmark "reference mission" against which competing proposals and alternative strategies could be measured. It attempted to cut the cost of the 1989 90-Day Study's Lunar Outpost by a factor of ten - to $ 30 billion total. However Bush's Space Exploration Initiative was axed soon thereafter and NASA closed down the Office of Space Exploration on March 25, 1993
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Lunox
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The NASA/JSC LUNOX proposal of 1993 tried to reduce the cost of maintaining a First Lunar Outpost by producing liquid oxygen propellant for the return to Earth from lunar soil. This allowed smaller launch and space vehicles, and reduced costs by 33% to 50%. The study marked the end of a brief NASA obsession with extreme heavy lift launch vehicles. But it was also eclipsed by Mars Semi-Direct plans that left out any intermediate lunar bases, and actual work on the International Space Station.
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Human Lunar Return
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The final Human Lunar Return study of 1996 was the ultimate cut-rate fasterbettercheaper manned lunar mission - requiring only two shuttle and three Proton launches, and landing two crew at Aristarchus in an open-cab lander. Total cost $2.5 billion; total time to achieve, five years. The collapse of the fasterbettercheaper approach and renewed public and NASA interest in Mars resulted in HLR sinking from sight...
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LANTR Moon Base
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In 1997 Borowski at NASA/LRC proposed combining liquid oxygen mined from the moon with a LOX-Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket earth-to-moon shuttle to achieve dramatic reductions in launch requirements for a lunar base. In this concept a reusable Lunar Landing Vehicle and reusable LANTR nuclear shuttle acted as tankers for each other. The LLV transported liquid oxygen mined from lunar soil to the LANTR in lunar orbit, while the nuclear shuttle delivered liquid hydrogen from Earth.
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CEV Andrews
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The Andrews Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) design adopted NASA's preferred Apollo CM re-entry vehicle shape, but combined it with a mission module crew cabin to minimize the CEV's mass.
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CEV Boeing
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Boeing's CEV consisted of a four-crew Apollo-type capsule, a service module, and a pressurized mission module.
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CEV Draper MIT
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The Draper-MIT CEV proposal was an 8-metric ton integral ballistic capsule.
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CEV Lockheed
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The Crew Exploration Vehicle first proposed by Lockheed was a lifting body with a total mass of 18 metric tons and a crew of four. This design was rejected by NASA, and the final concept was a steep-sloped ballistic capsule.
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CEV Northrop
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Northrop Grumman kept its CEV final proposal very secret, citing competitive concerns. Pictures released in late 2005 showed it to be identical to NASA's final design, an enlargement of the Apollo Command Module, using a lunar-orbit rendezvous scenario for the return to the moon.
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CEV Orbital
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Orbital's nominal CEV was an Apollo-derived capsule. The CEV's service module would take the capsule from low earth orbit, to lunar orbit, and back to earth.
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CEV Raytheon
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Raytheon's CEV was a low L/D capsule, designed for three crew, sized so that an existing EELV Heavy could send it towards L1.
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CEV SAIC
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SAIC's notional CEV was a Soyuz-shaped aeroshell, enclosing a common pressurized module, and accommodating a crew of four.
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CEV Schafer
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Schafer proposed a lightweight 11 metric ton integral CEV, staged from L1.
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CEV Spacehab
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The final Spacehab CEV concept was a three-module spacecraft using a slightly enlarged Apollo command module for return of the crew to earth. It would have allowed the CEV, and an entire lunar base, to be established using existing commercial expendable launch vehicles.
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CXV
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Crew Transfer Vehicle proposed by `t/Space and Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites for NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle requirement. A scaled up version of the Air Force's Corona capsule would have delivered four crew to orbit at a cost less than 1/20 that of NASA's CEV.
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Chinese Lunar Base
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Beginning in 2000, Chinese scientists began discussing preliminary work on a Chinese manned lunar base. Although not funded, it remains a long-term objective of the Chinese space program for the second quarter of the 21st Century.
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