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BIS Lunar Lander
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Design of the British Interplanetary Society's BIS Spaceship began in 1937 and was published in January and July 1939. The purpose of the exercise was to prove that a manned lunar expedition could be designed using existing powder rocket technology. The design was reformulated in 1947 based on information on German advances with liquid propellant rockets.
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Von Braun Lunar Lander
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Von Braun's first lunar lander design was an immense spacecraft, larger in earth orbit than a Saturn V booster. Three of them would take a 50-crew expedition to a six-week exploration of the moon at Sinus Roris in 1977.
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Early Soviet Lunar Lander
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Painting of early Soviet concept of a lunar lander. This was similar to Von Braun designs popular in the 1950's.
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Horizon LERV
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Lunar landing and return vehicle planned to take up to 16 crew to the lunar surface and back in the US Army's Project Horizon of 1959.
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Lunex Lunar Lander
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The largest single development objective for the Lunex program was to provide a spacecraft capable of transporting men and equipment to the lunar surface and returning them to a selected earth base. This payload would consist of a Lunar Landing Stage, Lunar Launch Stage and a 3-man Lunex Re-entry Vehicle.
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Apollo Direct 2-Man
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A direct lunar lander design of 1961, capable of being launched to the moon in a single Saturn V launch through use of a 75% scale 2-man Apollo command module.
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Apollo Martin 410
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The Model 410 was Martin's preferred design for the Apollo spacecraft. Selection of the lifting body design came only after extensive trade studies and the concept resembles CEV and Kliper manned spacecraft designs of 35 years later.
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Gemini LOR
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Original Mercury Mark II proposal foresaw a Gemini capsule and a single-crew open cockpit lunar lander undertaking a lunar orbit rendezvous mission, launched by a Titan C-3.
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Gemini Lunar Lander
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A direct lunar lander design of 1961, capable of being launched to the moon in a single Saturn V launch through use of a 2-man Gemini re-entry vehicle instead of the 3-man Apollo capsule.
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LM Langley Light
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This early open-cab single-crew Langley lunar lander design used storable propellants, resulting in an all-up mass of 4,372 kg.
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LM Langley Lighter
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This early open-cab Langley design used cryogenic propellants. The cryogenic design was estimated to gross 3,284 kg - to be compared with the 15,000 kg / 2 man LM design that eventually was selected.
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LM Langley Lightest
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Extremely light-weight open-cab lunar module design considered in early Langley studies. This version used cryogenic propellants to get a single crewman from lunar orbit, to the lunar surface, and back, at an all up mass of only 1,460 kg.
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Navy SLV
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The spacecraft for a US Navy lunar landing program that was to place a naval aviator on the moon by 1967.
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L3-1963
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Korolev's original design for a manned lunar landing spacecraft was described in September 1963 and was designed to make a direct lunar landing using the earth orbit rendezvous method. The 200 metric ton spacecraft requiring three N1 launches and a single Soyuz 11A511 launch to assemble in low earth orbit. When the decision was finally made to race the Americans to the moon in August 1964, this design had to be scrapped and replaced with the L3 single-launch version using lunar orbit rendezvous.
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Apollo LM
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Following the decision to use the lunar orbit rendezvous method to get to the moon, Grumman received the contract to develop the lunar module, which would take the first men to the surface to the moon. If funding had been available, modified lunar modules (dubbed LM Taxi, LM Shelter, and LM Truck) would have been used to set up the first lunar bases.
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Apollo LM Truck
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The LM Truck was an LM Descent stage adapted for unmanned delivery of payloads of up to 5,000 kg to the lunar surface in support of a lunar base using Apollo technology. The LM Truck would make precision landings using radio landing beacons prepositioned by the lunar base staff.
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Apollo LASS S-IVB
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The Douglas Company (DAC) proposed the "Lunar Application of a Spent S-IVB Stage (LASS)". The LASS concept required a landing gear on a S-IVB Stage. The mission was an unmanned, direct-flight, using an existing lunar beacon to obtain a precise landing location. The LASS required either a highly throttleable J-2 type engine (J-2X) or a moderately throttleable J-2S with RL-10 engines added to provide proper landing control.
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Apollo LM Taxi
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The LM Taxi was essentially the basic Apollo LM modified for extended lunar surface stays. This was expected to be the workhorse of both Apollo Applications Extended Lunar Surface Missions beginning in 1970 and still be used to shuttle crews to the surface to larger LESA (Lunar Exploration System for Apollo) in the mid- to late- 1970's.
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Apollo SMLL
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North American Aviation (NAA) proposed use of the SM as a lunar logistics vehicle (LLV) in 1966. The configuration, simply stated, put a landing gear on the SM. It was proposed for use in an unmanned, direct landing mode. The system required the addition of remote guidance and control and a suitable throttling engine.
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Gemini Lunar Surface Rescue Spacecraft
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This version of Gemini would allow a direct manned lunar landing mission to be undertaken in a single Saturn V flight, although it was only proposed as an Apollo rescue vehicle. The unmanned spacecraft would make a landing near a stranded Apollo lunar module.
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LK-3
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The LK-3 was Chelomei's preliminary design for a direct-landing alternative to Korolev's L3 manned lunar landing design. It would have used the 1966 version of the UR-700 booster to send a crew on a direct flight to the lunar surface and back. By the time of the draft project and mock-up stage, it had evolved into the more elegant LK-700 design.
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LLV
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Many versions of new Lunar Logistic Vehicles (LLV's) using several possible candidate propellants were studied by NASA and its contractors in the mid-1960's for post-Apollo lunar base support. By the time budget cutbacks ended such thoughts, NASA was favoring a two-stage version powered by throttleable RL10 engines burning liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen propellants.
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Gemini Lunar Surface Survival Shelter
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Prior to an Apollo moon landing attempt, the shelter would be landed, unmanned, near the landing site of a stranded Apollo Lunar Module. In the event the LM ascent stage would not light to take the crew back to the Apollo CSM in lunar orbit, the two astronauts could go to the shelter and await a rescue mission. The astronaut in the CSM would return alone in the Apollo spacecraft.
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L5-1967
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At a Lunar Soviet meeting in October 1967 preliminary agreement was reached to study a follow-on to the first N1-L3 lunar landings. A new N1 model was to be developed to launch a new 'L5' spacecraft. This was mentioned as being able to handle 4 to 5 crew, 1.5 to 2.0 metric tons of scientific equipment, and spend three months on the lunar surface. This was to be ready two to three years after the first landing.
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Apollo LPM
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The unmanned portion of the Lunar Surface Rendezvous and Exploration Phase of Apollo envisioned in 1969 was the Lunar Payload Module (LPM). This was an Apollo Lunar Module, augmented or not, in which all of the normal ascent features had been eliminated. This allowed a 3620 kg payload to be delivered to the lunar surface, to be used by a separately landed crew.
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LK-700
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The LK-700 was Chelomei's direct-landing alternative to Korolev's L3 manned lunar landing design. It would have used the monster UR-700 booster to send a crew of three on a direct flight to the lunar surface and back. Although Korolev's N1-L3 design was selected in 1964 for the manned lunar landing, work on the UR-700/LK-700 continued in parallel at a low level.
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L3M-1970
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The first design of the L3M lunar lander had the crew of two accommodated in a Soyuz capsule atop the lander. They would have had to don space suits to move to the pressurized toroidal crew compartment and land the spacecraft. Sufficient supplies existed for stays of 16 days on the lunar surface.
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LK
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The LK ('Lunniy korabl' - lunar craft) was the Soviet lunar lander - the Russian counterpart of the American LM Lunar Module. The LK was to have landed a single Soviet citizen on the moon before the Americans, winning the moon race. It completed development and test flown very successfully in earth orbit, but never reached the moon because the N1 booster required to take it to the moon never had a successful flight.
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DLB Beacon Lander
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In most Soviet manned lunar landing scenarios, versions of the Ye-8 unmanned landers would precede manned landings on the moon. After surveying the planned site, they would remain on the surface and provide a radio beacon that would allow the following LK or LKM manned landers to make a precision landing.
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L3M-1972
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Revised L3M design of the L3M lunar lander for use with the Block Sr crasher stage. The Soyuz return capsule was completely enclosed in a pressurized 'hangar'. This L3M would have allowed stays of up to 90 days by a crew of three.
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LEK
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Lunar lander for the Vulkan surface base. As in the original LK lunar lander, this would be taken to near zero velocity near the lunar surface by the Vulkan Block V 'lunar crasher' rocket stage. It would then descend to the lunar surface using a landing stage nearly identical to the American lunar module descent stage.
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LK Energia
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Lunar lander for Energia-launched lunar expedition. The LOK and LK lander would be inserted into lunar orbit by separate Energia launches.
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LEV
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The Lunar Excursion Vehicle (LEV) figured in numerous NASA studies of the 1980's and 1990's. It was conceived to transfer personnel and cargo between low lunar orbit and the lunar surface (these having been delivered there from a NASA space station by an Orbital Transfer Vehicle / Lunar Transfer Vehicle). It was usually derived from the OTV hardware but only a fraction of the OTV's size so that the OTV could deliver it to lunar orbit in a single flight. Precise mass figures varied from study to study depending on earth launch vehicle and OTV sizing assumptions.
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