A representative concept of an initial Lunar Base (model 4.0 - May 1997)

The proposal of returning to the Moon to stay was made by President Bush in July 1989, but the changes in the geopolitical environment since the end of the cold war have prevented a serious discussion of this proposal until now. It is expected, however, that this question of a permanent research facility on the Moon will come up again early in the next decade. Thus concepts and plans have to be ready by that time to be discussed and evaluated. This report is an updated version of an earlier study by the same author entitled: 'The Lunar Laboratory'. It describes in detail a Lunar Base that is supposed to grow from about 40 to 120 people in 30 years. Some 1,200 metric tons of facilities and equipment are needed on the Moon. Average crew duty cycles are assumed to be six months. A lunar space transportation system comprised of a heavy lift launch vehicle, a lunar ferry vehicle and a space operations center in lunar orbit is proposed. The systems behaviour, the dynamics of selected parameters and the overall performance and cost-effectiveness of the lunar laboratory are analysed and presented. It is shown that the average annual cost of a lunar man-year is expected to be approximatley 42 million (1994) dollars and that the average annual operations cost of this lunar base including a 10 year development phase may be less than 3 billion dollar. The results are summarized in 28 tables, 17 figures, 20 references comprising 51 pp. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from FIZ Karlsruhe / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman