page_title: First Lunar Outpost
section_title: Early Lunar Access pathfinder program
hierarchical_section_title: First Lunar Outpost / Early Lunar Access pathfinder program
caption_attribution_description: English: FLO Alternate Habitat
context_page_description: First Lunar Outpost was a proposal for a manned lunar mission that would have launched sometime in the 2010s. It was part of George H. W. Bush's Space Exploration Initiative. The main purpose of the proposal was to offer a much cheaper alternative to NASA's 90-day study from 1989 by a factor of $30 billion. Although it did not gather much mainstream attention, NASA dedicated much time to assembling a very detailed and thorough proposal. However, the entire Space Exploration Initiative was cancelled soon after the proposal's completion, and NASA had to close the Office of Space Exploration in March of 1993.
context_section_description: A precursor program called Early Lunar Access would have run during the early 2000s and used Ariane rockets and Space Shuttles to operate a low cost lunar exploration infrastructure. It would be a joint NASA and ESA mission and serve as a testing ground for FLO. It would use the same crew capsule but a smaller landing vehicle capable of supporting a crew of 2. The Space Shuttle would carry the Lunar Exploration Vehicle while the Ariane 5 (or Titan IV) would carry a wide bodied Centaur G rocket stage. Both payloads would rendezvous and dock in low Earth orbit. The Centaur would fire its engine to accelerate the craft on a trajectory to the lunar surface. To save fuel, the LEV would make a direct landing rather than entering a parking orbit. Once the surface mission is complete, the vehicle would separate two large spherical drop tanks and ascend directly to Earth, once again skipping low lunar orbit.
  
  In order to achieve the payload capacity required for this mission, the Ariane 5 would need an additional two SRBs and the Space Shuttle would need the lightweight Al-Li External Tank or Advanced Solid Rocket Motors to carry 25,720kg payloads to a 300km orbit. The new ET was eventually manufactured but the ASRMs were cancelled in 1994. The Centaur G would be modified to last 10 days in orbit rather than a few hours. The crew capsule would be the same upscaled Apollo capsule used on FLO but would only need to support a crew of two which meant it could carry extra supplies and payload.
caption: Alternate design for the surface habitat
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