NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

began its "Human Lunar Return study" in September 1995 to identify ways it could conduct future

human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...

missions to the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

. The final Human Lunar Return (HLR) briefing took place on August 7, 1996. The study was seen as laying "the foundation for human space activity over the next three decades."

Mission

The study called for a mission lasting 16 days, 10 of which would be spent on the lunar surface. The study baselined a lightweight architecture including an open-cockpit

lunar lander A lunar lander or Moon lander is a Lander (spacecraft), spacecraft designed to Moon landing, land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2024, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing s ...

weighing including fuel. The lunar habitat was designed to have an inflatable hull and was scheduled to be delivered in advance of the crew. To protect against

cosmic ray Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the ...

s and a possible

solar particle event In solar physics, a solar particle event (SPE), also known as a solar energetic particle event or solar radiation storm, is a solar phenomenon which occurs when particles emitted by the Sun, mostly protons, become accelerated either in the Sun's ...

, the hull of the lunar habitat to be at minimum thick and filled with either water or

polyethylene Polyethylene or polythene (abbreviated PE; IUPAC name polyethene or poly(methylene)) is the most commonly produced plastic. It is a polymer, primarily used for packaging (plastic bags, plastic films, geomembranes and containers including bott ...

. Components and crew for the mission would have been transported to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS) by two

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

flights. The HLR schedule called for the first mission to depart from the ISS in August 2001. One of the primary goals of the mission was to bring of payload from the lunar surface back to Earth to be studied.

Cost

The projected cost of the mission over the five year development timeline ranged between $2.5 and $4 billion. The mission required two shuttle and three

Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...

launches to land two

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

s and a small habitat structure at Aristarchus crater.

References

Human spaceflight NASA oversight Exploration of the Moon {{NASA-stub

Mission

Cost

See also

References