NASA lunar outpost concepts
NASA lunar outpost concepts are the long run of blueprints for living on the Moon that the agency has drawn up since the late 1950s. At its peak in 1964-65, NASA took 4% of all federal spending, and nearly all of it served the Apollo landings. After the last of those landings in 1972, people stopped going to the Moon. The dream of staying there never faded. Over the decades, planners imagined underground bases, fortresses, mining camps and polar settlements, and each one reflected the era that produced it. Why did so many plans appear, and why did each one give way to the next? What would a crew actually do on a lunar surface once it arrived? And is a home on the Moon a worthy goal, or an expensive distraction that robots could replace?
In 1958, the US Air Force conceived the Lunex Project, a plan to put people on the Moon ahead of the Apollo Program. Its centerpiece was a 21-person underground Air Force base, to be finished by 1968 at a total cost of $7.5 billion.
The US Army produced its own vision in 1959. On the 8th of June 1959, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency organized a task force called Project Horizon to judge whether a military base on the Moon was feasible. Heinz-Hermann Koelle, a German rocket engineer at the agency, led the study.
Project Horizon aimed at a fort by 1967. Two "soldier-astronauts" would make the first landing in 1965, and construction workers would soon follow them. To haul the cargo, the study counted on 61 Saturn I rockets and 88 Saturn C-2 rockets, enough to move 245 tons to the outpost by 1966.
The Army's method was unusual. The outpost would be assembled in Earth orbit first and then lowered whole onto the Moon. After that, further Saturn launches every month would carry supplies to the people living there.
In 1984, with the Space Shuttle in service, a team at the Johnson Space Center studied how NASA could go back to the Moon. The team assumed the agency would use the infrastructure it already planned to own. That meant the Shuttle, a heavy lift vehicle derived from it, a space station and an orbital transfer vehicle. Together they would build a permanent base for 18 crew members, sometime between 2005 and 2015.
The logistics began in low Earth orbit. A Shuttle would carry an empty lunar lander weighing 21,000 kilograms, plus its payload, up to the space station. There the lander would meet a propellant module of 100 tons.
Robots would go first. A mapper and a relay satellite were due for launch in 1996, followed in 1999 by a Surface Explorer Rover and an expendable lander. A manned capsule, an orbital transfer vehicle and an expendable ascent stage would then fly in 2003.
People would arrive in 2005-2006, in a small, semipermanently crewed "camp." A lunar orbiting space station was set for 2008-2009, and a permanently crewed base for 2009-2010. That base would add an expanded mining facility, pilot plants for processing lunar materials and a lunar agriculture research laboratory. Pilot oxygen production and experimental mining equipment would be landed beforehand.
The advanced base of 2013-2014 was the grand version. It would hold five habitation modules, a geochemical laboratory, a chemical and biological laboratory and a geochemical and petrology laboratory. It would also have a particle accelerator, a radio telescope, plants for oxygen, ceramics and metallurgy, and two shops. Three power units would supply it, and 90% of their materials would come from the Moon itself. One earthmover and crane and three trailers or mobility units would complete the list.
The team's final goal was a self-sustaining moonbase by 2017-2018, with development running from 2012 to 2016.
Kent Joosten, an engineer at the Johnson Space Center, proposed the International Lunar Resources Exploration Concept in 1993-1994. It belonged to President George H. W. Bush's Space Exploration Initiative. Joosten's plan called on international partners, mainly the Soviet Union, to assemble a lunar base and a sustainable lunar transportation service.
Timing doomed it. The proposal arrived at the end of the initiative's very short life, and the program never got off the ground. Only one project from that initiative survived, Space Station Freedom, which is now the International Space Station.
A second President Bush revived the goal a decade later. On the 14th of January 2004, George W. Bush announced that astronauts would return to the Moon and eventually go to Mars. The goal became known as the Vision for Space Exploration. In some aerospace circles it was unofficially called "Moon, Mars and Beyond."
In November 2005, NASA released the Exploration Systems Architecture Study, a large system-level study written in response to that announcement. The specifics of a human program beyond the Moon stayed vague, so the Moon became the place where the real planning began.
On the 4th of December 2006, NASA announced that it had concluded its Global Exploration Strategy and Lunar Architecture Study. The result was a basic plan for an outpost near one of the Moon's poles. Astronauts would live there in shifts of six months.
The reference site sat on the rim of Shackleton crater, inside the immense South Pole-Aitken basin near the Moon's south pole. Doug Cooke, Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, described the appeal at the presentation. He pointed to an area "that is... sunlit... 75 to 80 percent of the time, and it is adjacent to a permanently dark region in which there is potentially volatiles that we can extract and use.... This sunlit area is about the size of the Washington Mall." That works out to roughly 1.25 square kilometers.
The Indian orbiter Chandrayaan-1, which flew in 2008-2009, helped fix the outpost's precise location. Planners also weighed the rim of Peary crater near the lunar north pole and the Malapert Mountain region on the rim of Malapert crater.
The outpost design called for habitation modules, solar power units, unpressurized rovers, an In-Situ Resource Utilization unit and a surface mobility carrier. A mixed crew and cargo lander named Altair would supply it, carrying four astronauts and a payload of six tons.
The buildup was meant to be gradual. Four-person crews would make several seven-day visits until the power supplies, rovers and living quarters worked. The first mission was envisioned for 2020. Longer missions of 180 days would follow, as rehearsals for journeys to Mars.
All of this was drafted before anyone found water ice in a polar crater, measured at 5.6 plus or minus 2.9% by mass. That discovery may substantially change the plans.
The Vision for Space Exploration did not last. President Barack Obama's space policy eventually replaced it. Updated plans envisioned NASA building an outpost over the five years between 2019 and 2024. Congress directed that the American portion "shall be designated the Neil A. Armstrong Lunar Outpost."
A modest funding round came earlier. On the 6th of June 2008, NASA announced six research opportunities and asked for proposals under its Lunar Surface Systems Concepts Study. The overall budget was believed to be $2 million. Contracts were awarded in August 2008 by the NASA Constellation Lunar Surface Systems Project Office.
That office had been established at the Johnson Space Center in August 2007. It studied habitation systems, in-situ resource utilization, rovers, power production and storage, safety systems, and the systems needed to meet science and exploration goals. A surface system concept review was expected in 2010 or 2011.
In April 2023, NASA selected the crew for Artemis II, a mission to lunar orbit. The Artemis program is led by NASA with American commercial spaceflight companies and international partners, including the European Space Agency, JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency. Its stated goal is to land "the first woman and the next man" at the lunar south pole.
The schedule has slipped repeatedly. NASA asked for a $1.6 billion increase in its 2020 budget to fly another crewed mission by 2025, a date originally set at 2024. That slid to 2026, with a sustained presence on the Moon to follow by 2028. As of February 2026, NASA plans a crewed surface mission by early 2028.
The base itself would arrive in stages. Artemis IV, planned for early 2028 at the earliest, would begin a series of landings in the south polar region. Five temporary base camps would be set up using Human Landing Systems. Artemis VIII would then establish the fixed Foundational Surface Habitat of the Artemis Base Camp in the 2030s. Shackleton crater remains a primary target.
Another piece is the Lunar Surface Asset, a small habitat that NASA plans to launch in 2028. It would fly either on an SLS Block 1B rocket or through an Artemis Support Mission on a commercial launcher. This would be the first crewed lunar base.
A station in lunar orbit once played a part in these plans. The Lunar Gateway was meant to serve as a communications hub, a temporary habitation module and a holding area for rovers and robots bound for the surface. The omnibus spending bill passed by Congress in March 2018 gave NASA $504 million for preliminary studies in the 2019 fiscal year. The final amount enacted was slightly lower, at $450 million. In March 2026, the Gateway was cancelled in favor of an expanded moon base.
Michael D. Griffin, a former NASA Administrator, argued that a lunar base was about more than science. He said that "in the long run a single-planet species will not survive." He predicted that one day, though he did not know when, "there will be more human beings who live off the Earth than on it." He pictured people on the Moon, on the moons of Jupiter and on asteroids.
Criticism comes from several camps. Some want the human exploration money diverted to Mars. Others prefer uncrewed exploration, and some simply want the money spent elsewhere.
Jeff Foust, writing for The Space Review, found the six themes NASA released too "broad" and the explanations behind them "shallow." He argued that a Moonbase is a poor use of resources, because "science can be done for far less money by robotic missions," which also do not risk human lives. The Los Angeles Times agreed in an editorial. It said that "Manned moon flight may appeal to baby boomers, but it makes little scientific sense for most space missions these days."
Columnist Gregg Easterbrook, who has reported on the space program for decades, was blunter. He wrote that the base's scientific value is likely to be small while its price is extremely high. He warned that "moon-base nonsense may for decades divert NASA resources from the agency's legitimate missions." He called the project "human history's silliest white elephant." He would rather spend the billions on space probes, space observatories and protecting Earth from near-Earth asteroids.
Buzz Aldrin, the second of twelve men to have walked on the Moon, also disagrees with NASA's priorities. In a July 2009 editorial in the Washington Post, he wrote that the Vision for Space Exploration "is not visionary." He called the lunar surface "a poor location for homesteading," a "lifeless, barren world" hostile to all living things. His alternative is for NASA to concentrate on a human mission to Mars. A consortium of other countries under American leadership could handle the Moon and any base there.
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Common questions
What was Project Horizon?
Project Horizon was a 1959 study by the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency, led by Heinz-Hermann Koelle, about building a military fort on the Moon by 1967. It imagined two soldier-astronauts landing in 1965 and many Saturn launches carrying 245 tons of cargo by 1966.
What was the Lunex Project?
Lunex was a US Air Force plan conceived in 1958 for a crewed lunar landing ahead of Apollo. It envisioned a 21-person underground base by 1968 at a total cost of $7.5 billion.
Why did planners choose the rim of Shackleton crater?
The 2006 reference architecture picked an area near the Moon's south pole that is sunlit 75 to 80 percent of the time. It sits next to a permanently dark region that may hold volatiles that can be extracted and used.
What is the Artemis Base Camp plan?
Artemis IV, planned for early 2028 at the earliest, would begin crewed landings at the south polar region using five temporary base camps. Artemis VIII would then set up the fixed Foundational Surface Habitat in the 2030s.
What happened to the Lunar Gateway?
The Gateway was a proposed station in lunar orbit. Congress provided $450 million for preliminary studies in the 2019 fiscal year, but it was cancelled in March 2026 in favor of an expanded moon base.
Why do critics oppose a lunar outpost?
Critics say robotic missions can do the science for far less money without risking lives. Some want the money spent on Mars or elsewhere, and Buzz Aldrin argues NASA should focus on a human mission to Mars.
All sources
29 references cited across the entry
- 3NASA Names Astronauts to Next Moon Mission, First Crew Under ArtemisClaire O’Shea — 2023-04-03
- 6Please refer to Saturn (rocket family).
- 7JSC Moon Base 19842008-12-04
- 9JournalDetection of Water in the LCROSS Ejecta PlumeColaprete, A. et al. — 22 October 2010
- 12Exploration Strategy and ArchitectureShana Dale — NASA — 2006-12-04
- 13NASA Authorization Act of 2008 – Section 404 – Lunar OutpostLibrary of Congress — 2008-09-27
- 17Science Backroom Support for Sustained Lunar SurfaceC. A. Evans et al. — 2021-01-11
- 18NASA planning to spend up to $1 billion on space station deorbit moduleJeff Foust — 2023-03-13
- 20Competition Seeks University Concepts for Gateway and Deep Space Exploration CapabilitiesShanessa Jackson — NASA — 11 September 2018
- 21Senate bill restores funding for NASA science and technology demonstration missionsJeff Foust — Space News — June 12, 2018
- 22NASA just got its best budget in a decadeCasey Dreier — February 15, 2019
- 23NASA plans moon base, nuclear spacecraft in multibillion-dollar moon program expansionJoey Roulette — 2026-03-24
- 24NewsNASA's Griffin: 'Humans Will Colonize the Solar System'September 25, 2005
- 25Moonbase WhyJeff Foust — December 11, 2006
- 26NewsDon't colonize the moonDecember 10, 2006