THE PROJECT HORIZON STATION—WERNHER VON BRAUN

In 1959 Wernher von Braun and his team issued the Project Horizon report. This outlined the establishment of an entire lunar base by 1964. Von Braun at that time was with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, and had yet to be transferred to the newly formed NASA. As part of the Horizon report, he advanced the theory that he had conceived years earlier for using a booster’s spent stage as a space station’s basic structure. The Earth orbital station was a major requirement for Project Horizon to succeed as there were no boosters on the drawing boards that could provide anything like the thrust needed to send the men and equipment for the lunar base to the moon under a direct ascent mode. An Earth orbit rendezvous would be required for refueling prior to flight to the moon. The “mode question’’ would of course later resurface when Project Apollo began. Project Horizon envisioned moving quickly to an early improved station constructed from 22 upper stage shells. Prior to any expansion of lunar outpost operations, sufficient tankage would have been placed in orbit to permit construction of two or three such stations. The orbital station crew strength was approximately 10; however, they would be rotated every several months. It was proposed in the report that the Earth-orbiting station created during the construction of the lunar outpost would continue as a separate program making use of the resources created rather than wasting them. The contributions that the space station would have provided were as follows:

• space laboratory, acclimatisation, and training capability for personnel;

• space laboratory for equipment;

• material storage space;

• low-altitude communication relay;

• Earth surveillance (perhaps a security consideration in this specific operation);

• space surveillance;

• meteorological surveillance;

• survey/geodesy data collection; and

• instrumentation for the test of Earth-to-space weapon effects.