The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has proposed several concept moonbases for achieving a permanent presence of humans on the Moon since the late 1950s. Research and exploration of the Moon have been a large focus of the organization since the Apollo program. NASA's peak budget was in 1964–1965, when it comprised 4% of all federal spending in service of the Apollo Moon landing project. Though lunar landings since the conclusion of the Apollo program in 1972 have ceased, interest in establishing a permanent habitation on the lunar surface or beyond low Earth orbit has remained steady. Recently, renewed interest in lunar landing has led to increased funding and project planning. NASA requested an increase in the 2020 budget of $1.6 billion, in order to make another crewed mission to the Moon under the Artemis program by 2028 (originally 2024), followed by a sustained presence on the Moon. As of February 2026 NASA plans to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface by early 2028. A crew was selected for the crewed mission to lunar orbit, Artemis II, in April 2023.
History
1958 Lunex Project
The Lunex Project, conceptualized in 1958, was a US Air Force plan for a crewed lunar landing prior to the Apollo Program in 1961. It envisaged a 21-person underground Air Force Base on the Moon by 1968 at a total cost of $7.5 billion.
1959 Project Horizon
Project Horizon was a 1959 study regarding the United States Army's plan to establish a fort on the Moon by 1967. Heinz-Hermann Koelle, a German rocket engineer of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) led the Project Horizon study. It was proposed that the first landing would be carried out by two "soldier-astronauts" in 1965 and that more construction workers would soon follow. It was posited that through numerous launches (61 Saturn Is and 88 Saturn C-2s), 245 tons of cargo could be transported to the outpost by 1966. On 8 June 1959, the US Army's Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) organized a task force called Project Horizon to assess the feasibility of constructing a military base on the Moon. Project Horizon proposed using a series of Saturn launches to pre-construct an outpost while in Earth orbit, with the intention of subsequently delivering and landing the completed assembly on the Moon. Additional Saturn launches each month would then ship supplies to the inhabitants.
1984 Johnson Space Center lunar outpost concept In 1984, with the Space Shuttle in service, a team based at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) made a feasibility study for NASA's return to the Moon. It anticipated later studies in using NASA's planned infrastructure – the Shuttle, a Shuttle-derived heavy lift vehicle, a space station, and an orbital transfer vehicle – to build a permanent 18-crew Moon base sometime between 2005 and 2015.
Design details The Space Shuttle was to have transported the empty 21,000-kilogram lunar lander and payload to the space station, where they would rendezvous with the 100 ton propellant module. The first objective was the creation of a small semipermanently crewed "camp" on the lunar surface in 2005–2006. NASA was to have launched a lunar orbiting space station in 2008–2009 to support the creation of a permanently crewed moonbase by 2009–2010. This operational surface base would have contained an expanded mining facility, lunar materials processing pilot plants and a lunar agriculture research laboratory; pilot oxygen production and experimental mining facilities would have been landed previously. The lunar surface facility would have grown to an 18-crew "advanced base" in 2013–2014, consisting of five habitation modules, a geochemical laboratory, chemical/biological lab, geochemical/petrology lab, a particle accelerator, a radio telescope, lunar oxygen, ceramics and metallurgy plants, two shops, three power units (90% lunar-materials derived), one earthmover/crane and three trailers/mobility units. The ultimate goal would be a self-sustaining moonbase by 2017–2018. The following were the names of vehicles or mission steps associated with the JSC Moon Base:
Mapper and L-2 Relay Satellite. Development: 1992–1996. First launch: 1996. Surface Explorer Rover. Development: 1995–1999. First launch: 1999. Expendable Lander. Development: 1995–1999. First launch: 1999. Network and Regolith Science. Development: 2002–2004. Manned Capsule / OTV. Development: 1999–2003. First launch: 2003. Expendable Ascent Stage. Development: 1999–2003. First launch: 2003. Lunar Orbital Facilities. Development: 2004–2008. First launch: 2008–2009. Camp, temporary manned. Development: 2000–2004. First launch: 2005–2006. Base, permanent manned. Development: 2004–2009. First launch: 2009–2010. Advanced Base. Development: 2008–2013. First launch: 2013–2014. Self-Sustaining Base. Development: 2012–2016. First launch: 2017–2018.
1989 Space Exploration Initiative 90-Day Study on Human Exploration of the Moon and Mars
1992–1993 First Lunar Outpost
1993–1994 International Lunar Resources Exploration Concept
The International Lunar Resources Exploration Concept (ILREC) was a proposed mission architecture under President George H. W. Bush's Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) by Kent Joosten, an engineer at Johnson Space Center. The plan would have used the help of international partners, mainly the Soviet Union, to assemble a lunar base and sustainable lunar transportation service. The program was not able to get off the ground as it was proposed at the end of SEI's very short lifespan with the only surviving project being Space Station Freedom (now the International Space Station)
2005 Exploration Systems Architecture Study
The Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) is the official title of a large-scale, system-level study released by NASA in November 2005 in response to American president George W. Bush's announcement on 14 January 2004 of his goal of returning astronauts to the Moon and eventually Mars— known as the Vision for Space Exploration (and unofficially as "Moon, Mars and Beyond" in some aerospace circles, though the specifics of a human "beyond" program were vague).
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