The Moon (A 20th Century Future)

History
The first Manned Mission to visit the Moon occured on December 24, 1968 when Apollo-8 entered a low orbit around the Moon. The crew of three (Jim Lovell, Wiliam Anders, Frank Boreman) spent one day taking pictures of the surface and performing experimens. Their Christmas eve television broadcast of the reading of Genesis from lunar orbit reached an estimated 500 million people.

In March 1969 the Soviet Union launched L1-1, Soviet's first manned circumlunar spaceflight. The Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft made a simple loop around the Moon with cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Oleg Makarov. The week long mission lasted slightly longer than Apollo 8's 6 days.

In May, 1969 two lunar missions occured almost simultaniously, America's Apollo-10 (designed to test the Lunar Module and Command/Service Module in lunar orbit) and L1-2 (the second Soviet circumlunar spaceflight).

In June, 1969 the third and final Soviet circumlunar spaceflight, L1-3 took off and made it's mesurements and took it's pictures of the Moon. This would be the last Soviet mission to the Moon for several years. On July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 touched down on the Lunar surface. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings ever to walk on the surface of the Moon. The crew spent just 23 hours in the Sea of Tranquility before departing.

In October 1969, the rushed Apollo-12 suffered a near-fatal accident while halfway to the Moon, it's oxygen tank ruptured resulting in an immediet abort via a gravity assist around the backside of the Moon. While this delayed the Apollo Program by 10 months it did increase United States public's enthusiasm and support for the Space Program. In the year 1970 three Apollo moon-landing missions (Apollo 13, 14 & 15), each with three astronauts, a Command and Service Module (CSM), and a Lunar Module (LM) launched on a three-stage Saturn V rocket. They constituted the continuation of the Apollo lunar landing missions that had begun with Apollo 11. These H-class missions included precision landings and 36 hour surface stays. Apollo-13 visited the orignal landing site planned for Apollo-12 and met up with the unmanned Surveyor-3 lander (which landed on April 20, 1967).

In the year 1971 the first two Extended Apollo missions launched. An uprated Saturn VB rocket could launch three astronauts, an Extended CSM (XCSM) capable of 16 days of flight, and an Extended LM (XLM) capable supporting two astronauts for three days. The XLM would had a landed payload capacity of 1000 pounds. NASA flew two Extended Apollo missions per year from 1971 through 1973.

In 1974 Apollo 20, a single Lunar Orbital Survey Mission was launched after the Lunar Surface Exploration phase and as the end of the initial buy of Apollo spacecraft. This 28-day lunar polar orbit mission was flown after the Apollo's and ELM's, in order to have several "ground-truth" sites.

Between 1975-1976 The Lunar Surface Rendezvous and Exploration Phase began, nominally consisted of two dual-launch missions. A Lunar Payload Module (LPM - essentially the LM Truck of earlier studies) was delivered by an unmanned cargo carrier to the surface and provide a rendezvous target for a manned ELM that would arrive up to 3 months later. The Apollo LM Shelter was essentially an Apollo LM with ascent stage engine and fuel tanks removed and replaced with consumables and scientific equipment for 200 days of extended lunar exploration.

Early in 1976, a Saturn VC (a three stage Saturn V with a reusable Space Tug as a fourth stage) launched a 50,000-pound Space Station Module (SSM) and a fully fueled Space Tug/LM-B to near-polar lunar orbit. During 1976, 1977, and 1978, nine Saturn VCs launched four Space Tug/LM-Bs and five four-man QCSMs to the lunar-orbit SSM, enabling a continuous lunar orbit population of four astronauts. The QCSM, was an interim system like the Saturn VC. Two-man crews landed on the moon in Space Tug/LM-Bs four times in 1976, five times in 1977, and four times in 1978. Each trip to the lunar surface and back expended 50,000 pounds of LN2/LOX propellants and lasted 14 days.

The lunar-orbit Space Station Module kept two fully fueled Space Tug/LM-Bs on hand at all times. One would land on the moon and the other would stand by to rescue the surface astronauts in the event that their Space Tug/LM-B malfunctioned. After a year of operations, Space Tug/LM-Bs based at the lunar-orbit SSM would be stripped down and turned into tankage for a propellant depot in lunar orbit. Occasionally they would be deorbited with high resolution cameras and be used as impactors.



Beginin in 1978 with the introduction of the NERVA shuttle, a permanent base was built up with unmanned, one-way Space Tugs landing Space Station Modules on the lunar surface. Thus, by the end of 1978 there existed a continous population of six Astronauts on the Moon at all times and also a continous population of six astronauts in Lunar Polar Orbit at all times. This new phase allowed continued expantion of the Bases both, from six, to twelve to eventually by the late 1980s there were 24 people in the Lunar Orbit Base and 48 people at the Lunar Surface Base. The ice availible at Clauvius made it the perfect location for a Base because it allowed Breathing Oxygen, Drinking/Irrigating Water, Hydrogen/Oxygen rocket propellant to be manufactured.