User:WDGraham/MLE

Manned exploration of the Moon is the exploration of the Earth's natural satellite by means of manned spaceflight. The first manned missions to explore the Moon were conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the United States, as part of the Apollo programme. The race to land a man on the Moon had been a key objective of the space race, with both the Soviet Union and United States developing spacecraft to transport crews to the Lunar surface.

During the Apollo programme, nine manned missions visited the Moon, with one flight performing a circumlunar flyby after its landing was aborted, and the remainder entering orbit.

No humans have visited the Moon since the departure of Apollo 17 in December 1972. , a number of countries are reported to be working on manned missions to the Moon. The United States is currently working on Project Constellation, which is intended to see men return to the Moon aboard the Orion and Altair spacecraft, launched by Ares I and Ares V rockets.

Race to the Moon
The race to the Moon was one of the central themes of the Space Race, in which the United States and Soviet Union were competing to be the first to achieve advances in spaceflight and space exploration. On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. The United States launched its first satellite, Explorer 1, several months later on 1 February 1958. On 2 January 1959, the Soviet Union launched Mechta, which was to have been the first spacecraft to land on the Moon. Due to a malfunction of its Luna carrier rocket, it missed its target, and flew past the Moon, becoming the first spacecraft to escape geocentric orbit and enter heliocentric orbit. Luna 2, launched on 12 September of the same year, successfully completed the same mission.

Following the successful launch of Vostok 1, carrying cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, on 12 April 1961, it was clear that the Soviet Union was winning the Space Race........ On 25 May 1961, US President John F. Kennedy announced to the United States Congress that the United States should attempt to land a man on the Moon before 1970: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

Kennedy's decision to commit to a Lunar exploration programme was....... In a later speech at Rice University he again presented it as a challenge for NASA and the American aerospace industry. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The Soviet Union did not initially show interest in a manned Lunar programme, however on 3 August 1964, Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the Soviet space industry to reach the Moon before the United States did. Do not leave the Moon to the Americans...anything you need in order to do it, will be provided

Soviet programmes
The Soviet space programme consisted of several design bureaus competing against each other for contracts to develop spacecraft and rockets. The contracts for the Lunar programme were primarily contested by Sergei Korolev's OKB-1 bureau, and Vladimir Chelomei's OKB-52. As the competing bureaus fell in and out of favour with the Soviet government, the contracts were transferred between them, resulting in a number of different programmes being conducted, none of which succeeded in sending cosmonauts to the Moon. Korolev's proposals eventually led to the Soyuz programme.

Soyuz ABV


The Soyuz ABV complex was a proposed Earth orbit rendezvous manned circumlunar spacecraft. It would have been launched using up to six Soyuz 11A511 carrier rockets, and assembled in low Earth orbit, into a circular orbit at an altitude of 226 km, and an inclination of 65°.

First, the Soyuz-B would have been launched. This was an orbital tug, which contained the propulsion system that would place the spacecraft onto its circumlunar trajectory. It would have been launched unfuelled, and the next three or four launches would have been of Soyuz-V tankers, at intervals of one day, transporting RP-1 paraffin propellent and liquid oxygen oxidiser for the Soyuz-B to burn. These would have docked with a port at the rear of the Soyuz-B, on the NO module. After fuelling the Soyuz-B, each Soyuz-V would have undocked to make way for the next one.

Once the Soyuz-B was fully fuelled, the final launch would have been of a manned Soyuz-A spacecraft, carrying two cosmonauts. It would have docked with the forward port of the Soyuz-B. Following this, the NO module would have been jettisoned, and the Soyuz-B engine fired to send the complex on its way to the Moon.

This proposal was cancelled in [YEAR] in favour of the LK-1 proposed by Vladimir Chelomei's OKB-52 design bureau. The Soyuz-A evolved into the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft, used for manned flights to low Earth orbit, from which later Soyuz spacecraft were derived. The later Soyuz 7K-L1 and 7K-L3 lunar spacecraft were also derived from it.

Zond


The Zond programme, or L1, would have used the Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft, a stripped down version of the Soyuz-A, to fly manned circumlunar missions. The Proton-K rocket was to be used as the carrier rocket for Zond missions, with a Block D upper stage being used to propel the spacecraft from low Earth orbit to the Moon.

Due to concerns over the Proton's reliability, early manned missions would have seen the crew launch aboard a Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft, on a Soyuz rocket, which would then dock with the L1 in low Earth orbit. This plan was later abandoned in favour of launching the crew aboard the L1.

Several unmanned test flights were conducted,.......... Zond 5 was launched on 14 September 1968, and conducted a successful flight. If the next flight was successful, the Soviets were considering launching a manned flight after it. The Zond 6 mission, which was launched in November, failed due to the depressurisation of the descent module before reentry, and a subsequent malfunction of the parachute system which caused the spacecraft to crash into the Steppes of Kazakhstan. This resulted in the cancellation of plans to launch Zond 7 with a crew.

N1-L3
N1-L3 was intended to land a man on the moon. It would have used a single launch, lunar orbit rendezvous architecture, with the same rocket carrying a Soyuz 7K-L3 orbiter, and an LK lander.

The N1 was developed to launch the spacecraft. It consisted of a three stage core vehicle.............two upper stages.........

N1 launches occurred from Site 110 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a two pad launch complex where the rockets would undergo final processing, fuelling, and launch. Like most other Soviet rockets, the N1 was assembled horizontally, and transported to the launch pad by train.

Four N1 launches were conducted, all of which failed during first stage flight.................



L3M
L3M was the final incarnation of the L3 programme. It would have used a two launch Earth orbit rendezvous architecture. As with L3, the N1 rocket would have been used for the L3M programme.

The programme was cancelled after the N1's continued unreliability during test flights.

Apollo missions
Nine Apollo missioons were launched to the Moon. These consisted of two orbital flights, followed by seven landing attempts. The third landing attempt, Apollo 13, was aborted en-route after an oxygen tank exploded. It performed a circumlunar flypast of the Moon in order to return to Earth. The other six landing attempts were successful. In total, twelve astronauts landed and walked on the Moon. In addition, ten astronauts orbited the Moon without landing, and two flew past the Moon but did not enter orbit.

Three astronauts visited the Moon twice. Jim Lovell orbited the Moon on Apollo 8 and later flew past on the aborted Apollo 13 landing attempt. John Young and Eugene Cernan both orbited the Moon on Apollo 10, before landing on Apollo 16 and 17 respectively.

That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind

Missions

 * Astronauts listed in bold landed on the Moon

Cancellation
I believe history will record that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.

Soyuz
There have been a number of proposals to fly manned lunar missions using the existing Soyuz spacecraft. These proposals have been made by both the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, and by commercial organisations.

Constellation Services International and Space Adventures have both proposed flying manned circumlunar flights using the existing Soyuz-TMA spacecraft. These missions would involve the crew launching aboard a Soyuz on either a dedicated Lunar flight, or a mission to the International Space Station. The Soyuz spacecraft would then rendezvous and dock with an upper stage in low Earth orbit. In the event of a flight via the ISS, the tourists would first spend around two weeks at the station before boarding the Soyuz spacecraft scheduled for return to Earth. This would undock from the ISS for rendezvous with the upper stage. After docking with the upper stage, it would be used to raise the apogee of the Soyuz's orbit, and place it on a free return trajectory. The Block DM, derived from the Block D which was developed as part of the Soviet Lunar programme in the 1960s, is being considered for use as the upper stage. It would be launched by a Proton-M carrier rocket. As of 2009, neither company has made any firm plans to launch such a flight.