The Lunex Project was a US Air Force 1958 plan for a manned lunar landing prior to the Apollo Program. The final lunar expedition plan in 1961 was for a 21-airman underground Air Force base on the Moon by 1968 at a total cost of $ 7.5 billion.

One of the biggest differences between Lunex and the final version of Apollo was the decision to land the entire spacecraft on the Moon rather than have a separate lander take some of the astronauts to the surface and rendezvous with the remaining astronauts in lunar orbit for the return to Earth. (The original plan for Apollo was for direct ascent, similar to Lunex.)

Associated vehicles

Lunex Lunar Lander

• Crew Size: 3
• Length: 16.16 m (53.01 ft)
• Maximum Diameter: 7.62 m (24.99 ft)
• Span: 7.62 m (24.99 ft)
• Mass: 61 000 kg (134 000 lb)
• Agency: USAF
• Manufacturer: USAF

Location

Selection of base sites were to be made by automated probes, with Kepler crater

Kepler (lunar crater)

Kepler is a lunar impact crater that lies between the Oceanus Procellarum to the west and Mare Insularum in the east. To the southeast is the crater Encke....

 being a studied location.

Background

Lunex planned to make its first lunar landing and return in 1967, in order to beat the Soviets and demonstrate conclusively that America could win future international competition in technology with the USSR. The Air Force felt that no achievement short of a lunar landing would have the required historical significance.

The use of the direct ascent

Direct ascent

Direct ascent was a proposed method for a mission to the Moon. In the United States, direct ascent proposed using the enormous Nova rocket to launch a spacecraft directly to the Moon, where it would land tail-first and then launch off the Moon back to Earth...

 profile was considered to be the most promising because it eliminated some of the complexities of the Lunar orbit rendezvous

Lunar orbit rendezvous

Lunar orbit rendezvous is a key concept for human landing on the Moon and returning to Earth.In a LOR mission a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar module travel together into lunar orbit. The lunar module then independently descends to the lunar surface. After completion of the mission there, a...

 that would later be used by Apollo: in particular there would be no need to develop rendezvous techniques in space. The down side was that the Lunex spacecraft would be much heavier than Apollo to carry the extra fuel required to land the entire spacecraft on the Moon and return it to lunar orbit, and consequently a larger rocket would be required to send it to the Moon.

Implementation

Three milestones were set:

• 1965: recovery of a manned reentry vehicle
• 1966: manned circumlunar flight
• 1967: manned lunar landing and return

After 1968, a Permanently Manned Lunar Expedition was planned.

Problems

The main problems to be solved were:

• Re-entry at 37,000 feet per second, with the flight path within a two-degree angle to avoid overheating or skipping out of the Earth's atmosphere. The latter wouldn't kill the crew directly, but would leave the Earth-return spacecraft in an elliptical orbit where they might be exposed to excessive radiation in the Van Allen belts before the next re-entry opportunity.
• Development of the lunar landing stage, which would have to make a precision landing tail-first on rocket thrust: something never previously tested.
• Development of the lunar launching stage, which had no backup capability, so must be extremely reliable and capable of automated checkout on the lunar surface, and capable of putting the crew into the correct orbit to return to Earth.

See also

• Project Horizon
  Project Horizon
  Project Horizon was a study to determine the feasibility of constructing a scientific / military base on the Moon. On June 8, 1959, a group at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency produced for the U.S. Department of the Army a report entitled Project Horizon, A U.S. Army Study for the Establishment...
  
  
• Colonization of the Moon
  Colonization of the Moon
  The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities on the Moon. Advocates of space exploration have seen settlement of the Moon as a logical step in the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth. Recent indication that water might be present in noteworthy...
  
  
• Project A119
  Project A119
  Project A119, also known as "A Study of Lunar Research Flights", was a top-secret plan developed in the late 1950s by the United States Air Force. The aim of the project was to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon to boost public morale in the United States after the Soviet Union took an early lead...
  
  
• Zvezda (moonbase)
  Zvezda (moonbase)
  Zvezda moonbase , also DLB Lunar Base — plan and project of 1962—1974 of Soviet manned moonbase as successor N1-L3 manned lunar expedition program. It was the first detailed such project more developed than early US Horizon and Lunex projects and later Apollo Lunar Base Wernher von Braun and NASA...