Concept for a near-term lunar laboratory (LULAB model 2000)

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 after completion of the ISS. 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 studies by the same author. It describes in detail a Lunar Laboratory growing from 30 to 100 people in 30 years. Nearly 1,000 metric tons of facilities and equipment are needed on the Moon. Average crew duty cycles are 12 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 an essential companion project. The systems behaviour, the dynamics of selected parameters and the overall performance and cost-effectiveness of the lunar laboratory and its logistic system are analysed and presented. It is shown that the average annual cost of a lunar man-year is expected to be approximately 39 million (1999) dollars and that the average annual operations cost of this lunar base including a 10 year development phase may be less than 2 billion $. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RN 3442(336/1999) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman