The final product will be better organized. I'm still trying to decide in what order to explain the component of the mission.
I) Prelude to Moonlab
The road to Moonlab leads back to 1961. Shortly after Alan Shepard’s fifteen minute flight, President John Kennedy announced that NASA would land a man on the moon and return him to Earth by the end of the decade. Whether or not Kennedy had 1969 or 1970 in mind as the end of the decade may never be known. What is known was that everyone in NASA thought the President quite mad. America had not even reached orbit and now they were supposed to beat the Soviet Union to the moon?
The challenges faced to reach the moon ranged from laughable to serious. In the beginning NASA doctors had serious doubts about whether or not an astronaut could even survive weightlessness for the duration of the voyage. In hindsight their fears were ridiculous to say the least. Man can breathe while weightless, the heart pumps blood and the digestive system functions with little trouble. Engineers worried whether or not rendezvous was even possible. Though it was not quite as simple as launched with exact precision it was also nowhere near as impossible as a few engineers, mostly those in favor of Direct Ascent, claimed.
More serious was the problem of extravehicular activity. EVAs during the Gemini missions put several astronauts at risk. Gene Cernan nearly died of exhaustion trying to struggle back into the capsule. The problem was not so much of physics as it was of training. The initial problem was remedied when Edwin Aldwin threw a space capsule into a pool and dove in after it. Though not actually weightless, the buoyancy of an environmental suit in water mimics moving in space. So many technical obstacles lay ahead that entire books could be written about every aspect of Project Mercury and Gemini.
The biggest stumbling block to the moon came in the form of Apollo I. A fire in an oxygen-rich environment of a low quality capsule all but gutted it, killing three astronauts in the process. The fire forced NASA and North American-Rockwell engineers to redesign the Apollo from the ground up, delaying the first successful launch by more than eighteen months. When launched in October 1968, Apollo VII worked like a dream. Apollo VIII was originally poised to run the first tests of the Lunar Excursion Module in Earth orbit. It was an essential step in the process, for if the LEM did not maneuver as advertised then the 1969/70 deadline would never be met.
Months prior to Apollo VIII’s launch the CIA discovered the massive N1 sitting on a Soviet launch pad undergoing preparation for launch. The N1 was the Soviet answer to the Saturn V, with the explicit purpose of placing a Soyuz into lunar orbit. It was feared that the Soviets were preparing for their first moonshot. It was a founded fear for that was precisely what the Soviets planned. Little did the CIA or NASA know that the N1 was plagued with technical difficulties and the first circumnavigation of the moon by Cosmonauts did not occur until June 1969, six month after Apollo VIII returned from its ten orbits of Luna and nearly a month after Apollo X returned from testing the LEM in lunar orbit.
When it became clear to Soviet leaders that the first man on the moon would not be a cosmonaut plans went into effect to tromp the impending American landing. One of the Soviet back-up plans came in the form of a sample return probe. While it would only return with a few grams of regolith (compared to the eventual American return of 439 kg of lunar material during the Apollo Program), Soviet leaders hoped to pull off a propaganda coup by showing they could return sample at a fraction of NASA’s price.
Luna 15 touched down just two days before Apollo XI and despite some technical difficulties it successfully launched its sample return which beat the Americans back to Earth by mere hours. Unfortunately, after re-entry the parachute on the return capsule failed to deploy properly causing it to land at far greater speeds that designed. While the sample survived the crash it was too contaminated to be of much use. With their efforts to one-up the Americans over, Premier Brezhnev was forced to call President Nixon and congratulate the United States on its amazing achievement. It was by no means admitting defeat.
The Soviets launched three more sample return mission, all landing successfully. Few outside of the Soviet Bloc noticed the achievement, or if they did they hardly cared. Probes bringing back a few grams of dust did not excite the world’s imagination like watching a man walking on the surface of another world. Though they were now clearly behind the American space effort, the Soviets pushed forward with their own manned landing. They set 1971 as the first goal, then 1972 and finally settling for 1974. The first Cosmonaut, Alexi Leonov, did not set foot upon the moon until well after the last Apollo mission departed for Earth and only two months before the first manned Moonlab mission arrived.
If not for the continued Soviet push for the moon it is entirely possible that the moon program would have been cancelled after the final Apollo mission. In 1970, President Richard Nixon had three option placed in front of him by NASA. 1) The development of Earth orbital infrastructure. 2) Continued exploration of the moon with Project Moonlab. 3) A manned mission to Mars. The third option was seriously considered and with elements of NASA and the aerospace industry continuing to push for the development of Nova, it might even have worked. Earth orbit would have been the cheapest option, even with the projected developmental cost of a “reusable” space shuttle it would still be 20% less than Moonlab. Nixon chose the second option as the image of a Soviet Union gaining a toehold on the moon while NASA puttered around Earth orbit worried him. Not only would it have wasted several years of effort already invested in Moonlab but it would have been a public relations disaster.
One of the first orders of business with Project Moonlab was the development of a new booster. A potential booster sat on the drawing board years before Congress approved NASA’s Moonlab budget. The Nova clique pressed hard for their monster rocket to be considered. It was originally designed to haul a direct ascent mission to the moon. Moonlab could easily have fitted atop the rocket, especially since it would not require the fuel to leave the moon. The Habitat Module was on a one-way voyage.
The Saturn V was still a new booster and before its unshakable launch record was established engineers were looking for ways to improve its lift capacity. For a second generation LEM, they expanded the third stage of the Saturn V for 50% greater payload. This required little modification to the first and second stage. For the HM of Moonlab, engineers proposed further modifications to the Saturn V, including expanding fuel capacity for the first two stages and making the third stage nearly as powerful as the others. The designed Saturn Vb stood ten meters taller than the Saturn V and had a theoretical lifting capacity of fifty tonnes, the upper limit of a Moonlab Habitat Module.
The ultimate decision lay in the funding, with the initial designed for Project Moonlab happening before Congress approved funding in 1971. The Saturn Vb would cost far less to develop than Nova, which was looking more and more like a bottomless pit. The Nova booster would not be scrapped by this setback for its capacity was ideal for any Mars mission. Engineers working on the Saturn family of boosters often joked about the cost overruns and delays of Nova; saying that man would already be on Mars by the time that monster was ready for its first flight.
One of the easier engineering challenges of Moonlab was Moonlab’s Habitat Module. It might seem a great challenge to build a structure capable of surviving on the moon for five years, and in fact it was. However, the HM was on a one-way voyage and thus required no ascent engine or extensive control systems. The lack of an ascent engine opened up more space, and weight, for extra supplies, experiments and living space. Much of the equipment would not be replaceable and thus must run at least five years. A few of the younger engineers on the project remarked on the similarities of Moonlab and the 1960s science-fiction show Star Trek, with the Enterprise’s five year mission. Gunther Went pointed out to these engineers that the show was cancelled before five years and hoped the comparison was not an ill omen.
After a decade of unmanned probes and the failures that followed them, engineers knew exactly what to do, and what not to do when they designed Moonlab’s automated landing system. Initially only a single HM was planned but being the conservative society it is, NASA ordered a second HM as back-up should disaster befall the first. It was a prudent, if costly decision. As astronaut Charles Conrad said when he first saw the design “it will be like trying to land an Atlas on the moon backwards”.
The first level of the HM contained the air lock, EVA equipment, life support systems and supplies. Lift restrictions limited the initial supplies sent with Moonlab I. Instead of hauling five years’ worth of supplies in one mission, or having each manned Moonlab mission bring three months’ of supplies with them, a lunar “truck” would arrive monthly with enough oxygen, water and food to sustain the crew for the month. Along with supplies, each of these unmanned supply missions would also carry new experiments. The lunar truck was little more than a modified and automated LEM, with its ascent engine removed to make room for more supplies.
The second level contained mineral and material sciences laboratories. Here, the geologist of the crew would run experiments on lunar samples. A majority of the experiments planned for Moonlab were not designed out of scientific curiosity. Project Moonlab was only the precursor to a real permanent outpost on the moon. Launching everything from Earth would be prohibitedly expensive and thus NASA sought to have its future astronauts do what the pioneers of the 19th Century did; live off the land. If aluminum and titanium could be extracted directly from the moon it would save billions of dollars. Not only that, but the oxygen bonded to these elements would be pumped into life support. NASA did not want a single gram of lunar material to go to waste.
The third level of Moonlab was home to the environmental and ecological labs. These experiments ran virtually by remote, with the astronauts following any instructions received from Earth. Living off the land was only part of the future challenges. That which could not be extracted from the moon and shipped from Earth would have to last years. Developing new ways of recycling waste would not only help astronauts on the high frontier, but it also had its uses in the heavily industrialized portions of Earth.
Moonlab features an early attempt at a partially closed loop for its water supply. Water used from cleaning would run through filters and be purified. The process of converting urine into water was a little more involved and ultimately aided in the treatment of sewage back on Earth. Despite its effectiveness and the purity of its produce, astronauts were reluctant to drink it. Much of the recycled product went to watering plants in the laboratory.
Room for the astronauts was almost an afterthought. In their home away from home, Astronauts would sleep where they could find space to hang their hammocks. Only a small locker for each astronaut was allocated for personal affects. Bathroom facilities were also highly limited as the need to conserve every milliliter of water ran high in the project’s list of priorities. Moonlab astronauts would be the new frontiersmen, roughing it in the lunar wilderness until the Inflatable Habitat Module arrived. Crew selection proved a big challenge as confinement to the HM during the fourteen day lunar night cycle may prove a psychological strain. NASA, and more importantly the Moonlab astronauts, could ill afford a conflict of personalities a quarter of million miles from home.
The Inflatable Habitat Module was designed to be the living quarters for astronauts, sheltering them from the harsh conditions on the lunar source. Before it is deployed, a large industrial rover called the Lunar Excavation Vehicle (LXV) would arrive on the moon. The machine was designed for the sole purpose of excavating a trench to deploy the IHM and bury it beneath a layer of regolith. The LXV was a joint project between various aerospace and construction companies, with the frame built by Boeing, electronics by Lockheed and earth moving equipment by John Deere. After the IHM was successfully deployed, the LXV would remain on the surface until a further use was discovered. At it could not even top one kilometer an hour, it was all but worthless in exploring the moon outside of taking core samples.
Much of the hardware for Moonlab would be new by 1974, though the means of arrival and departure from the moon were solidly proven. Instead of developing a new spacecraft, Apollo would be used to ferry the astronauts and sampled between Earth and Luna. The Apollo/Moonlab CM was of the Block III design, equipped with solar panels and batteries. With missions longer than three months conventional fuel cells would be too heavy to last the duration, especially if Moonlab missions were extended to six months or even a year. For the Apollo missions, the Block II Command Module, with its forty day capacity, was more than adequate for a two-week mission. Even on stand-by mode, there was a distinct possibility that the Block II would run out of power before the astronauts returned from the surface.
Engineers also argued over whether or not the CM could survive in lunar orbit unoccupied for three months of longer. The Soviets proved the value of solar power on spacecraft with their Soyuz mission but even those lasted less than a month and always had at least one crewman on board. Before any solar power Apollos were allowed to make the voyage to the moon, NASA planners set up two unmanned missions. Apollo XVIII began its six month test flight on January 3, 1973. Once firmly in orbit, operators on the ground ordered the CM powered down to stand-by mode and waited. On June 17, Apollo XIX docked with the unmanned craft and powered it up. Aside from the higher-than-planned temperature (Block III was designed to maintain an average of twenty degrees C while in stand-by) of thirty-three degrees the capsule returned to life without a problem. Apollo XIX’s crew returned to Earth in Apollo XVIII, leaving their capsule to undertake a year-long test flight. It would return to Earth by remote only a month before Moonlab III launched.
Given that the Moonlab HM was designed for a five year mission, standard fuel cells were not a viable option. Two options were open in the late 1960s; solar and nuclear. Nuclear power was a proven source, used in deep-space probes as well as orbiting satellites. Experiments left behind by Apollo ran on radioisotope thermal generators. The RTG worked by converting heat given off by radioactive decay into power. It worked well for probes and experiments but something the size of Moonlab needed an extra kick.
The SNAP series of small reactors powered many satellites; however their design life gave them one year of guaranteed run time. For Moonlab, the SNAP-8, deployed in 1965, was expanded. The SNAP-8B generated sufficient power to last Moonlab six years, giving the program an extra wide margin of error. To meet Moonlab goals, it was not feasible to deploy a test reactor on the moon for five years. Instead, the prototype SNAP-8B, finished in 1971, began continuous operation as soon as it was finished. By 1973, when Moonlab’s reactor received its finishing touch, the test reactor continued to run strong. When the experiments were leaked to the press, NASA was struck by a sudden anti-nuclear backlash from the public.
A vocal minority expressed outrage in NASA dumping radioactive material on another world and polluting the high frontier, never mind the fact that natural occurring radiation in space outstripped anything humanity could produce. By the early 1970s, the newborn environmental movements jumped at anything “nuclear”. The issue went as far as a Congressional investigation into why Moonlab could not use solar power. After all, the orbiting spacecraft was solar powered. One key point lost on the public in general was that anything in lunar orbit would not be trapped in the fourteen day long night cycle of the surface. The CM could run on batteries in the shade, Moonlab could not.
Unless Moonlab landed at one of the poles, solar power in the 1970s was simply not a practical option. Even then, large solar array were needed, adding billions to the cost of Moonlab and years of further development. Even attempts to install and test solar panels on the HM would delay the project by months. Had the environmentalist the size and clout they have in the 21st Century, it is entirely possible Moonlab would have been cancelled. Only the threat of the Red Menace lingering in the air propelled Congress to approve NASA’s budget, allowing the first Moonlab missions to proceed. NASA public relations assured the public that research into solar power and higher capacity batteries would progress and the future moon base would incorporate them into any such development. They failed to say whether or not the breakthroughs would happen before Moonlab completed its five year mission.
Unlike Apollo, Moonlab called for all three astronauts to venture to the surface. To beat the Soviets to the moon, NASA settled for a smaller, two-man Lunar Excursion Module. The second generation LEM underwent testing from 1972 to 1974. Two of the orbital tests were unmanned, testing not only the maneuvering of the new LEM but also many systems of the Block III Apollo already in orbit, such as whether or not it could automatically dock without major problems. A third, manned test occupied on December 17, 1973, using an older, Block II Apollo. The only real difference between the two models of Apollo was the power source. Docking mechanism and controls were unchanged.
The Moonlab LEM differed little from Apollo’s LEM. The two major differences involved more powerful engines and a more voluminous interior to allow for a third astronaut. Project Moonlab called for a LEM to carry those three astronauts as well as 200 kg of lunar samples and laboratory specimens. The Grumman design team rated the new LEM for 250 kg but NASA planners decided to stick with the plan and not permit loads in excess of 200 kg from returning to space, giving the LEM a wide safety margin.
Development cost of the LEM and CM for Moonlab proved to be one of the few good deals for the project. With most of the transportation hardware research and development covered by past projects, Project Moonlab focused its resource on the new instead of wasting money on the tried and true. The Chines space program of the 21st Century followed a similar pattern. Thinks to what was learned in the 1960s at American and Soviet expense, China could leap forward to its Shenzhou spacecraft (itself an updated copy of the Soyuz) without having to pour billions of Yuan into learning if its Taikonauts could even survive weightlessness.
One of the tried and true tools of Apollo was abandoned in favor of a new model. The original lunar rover fulfilled its role as a short-range transport very well but Moonlab mission durations spanned many times the length of Apollo’s stays on the moon. Everything within walking distance of the HM would be thoroughly explored in a week of the first manned Moonlab mission. A new Lunar Exploration Vehicle (LEV), nicknamed the moon buggy by the astronauts operating it, capable of operating across hundreds of kilometers was needed. With solar panels powering it the only real limitation to the LEV was the length of a lunar day.
Travelling at ten kilometers an hour, such long drives would literally last for days. Instead of requiring astronauts to remain exposed on the surface the LEV would have a large pressurized cabin the crew could call home. If Moonlab was an RV then the moon buggy would be a tent. Facilities were primitive. Only one bunk was placed in the vehicle, forcing the astronauts to rotate their rest periods. One would drive while the other slept. The interior volume was only seven cubic meters. While greater than the Apollo CM, it barely gave the astronauts room to get out of the driver’s seat and into the bunk. While the LEV was designed for “shirt sleeve operations” the cramp quarters made it impractical to strip completely out of the.
Behind the pressurize cabin, a second compartment for experiments, equipment and sample returns sat open to vacuum. Looking upon the LEV in profile, one is reminded of a full-size van pulling a small trailer. The similarities are only superficial as the moon buggy could barely operate in Earth’s gravity as it proved during its two long-duration tests. To test crew and vehicle, the moon buggy was first deployed to Death Valley in August 1972, placing it in one of the hottest spots on Earth. A second test occurred in January 1973, on Baffin Island, testing the LEV in extreme cold. Neither of the extremes matched conditions on the moon, but it did prove the buggy capable of operating in extreme conditions. Further tests inside a pressure chamber exposed it to the heat and cold of lunar conditions unmanned.
An unexpected, at least from the general public’s perspective, difficult in Project Moonlab cam in including non-pilots into the crews. The astronaut corps was formed from a pool of test pilots, all with some military background and engineering degrees. There was only so much an air force major or naval commander could do on the moon. Criticism towards the initial selection of Moonlab crews included the lack of scientists on what was partly a scientific mission. True, the astronauts would be directed by Earth-based laboratories in many of the experiments but if NASA planned to just have remote controlled astronauts in Moonlab then they might as well do away with the human aspect and switch over to full automation. Robotic probes were far cheaper and easier to support in the hostile lunar environment.
Instead of sending crews through the years it would require to gain a basic degree in geology, NASA decided to turn scientists into astronauts. The decision actually dated back to 1966, with a study that eventually evolved into the unofficially named scientific corps. Twelve scientists were selected; nine geologists and three astronomers for Project Moonlab. The inclusion of astronomers in the mission raised a few eyebrows in Congress, with the oversight committee asking why scientists who made a living out of looking up were being sent to study what was essentially the ground. It took a little explaining to convey the idea that the airless moon was ideal for astronomic observations, even if Moonlab lacked a large telescope.
Much of the scientific corps training involved how to operate the LEM and LEV. For Project Apollo, one of the geologists served on the backup crew for Apollo XVII as the LEM pilot. It was a precaution and one that would only be activated in the event Moonlab faced cancellation. As Moonlab progressed to the point that its launch was certain, Harrison Schmidt waited until Moonlab III to get up close and personal with Luna.
After years of training before the first Moonlab mission the concept underwent re-evaluation by auditors. The cost of turning scientist into astronauts, both in time and money, turned out to be greater than sending individual astronauts back to college to earn a degree in Earth Sciences. In hindsight, it might not have been the best use of resources, but nor would it be the last cost overrun in Project Moonlab. Even before the HM launched, more than three billion dollars went into the project. For the project’s duration, the public would be left wondering if the knowledge gained was really worth the price.
