First Lunar Outpost Lander: 9205-FLO-1 (FLO)
On July 20, 1989 – the 20th anniversary of the Apollo
11 lunar landing mission – President George H. W. Bush
announced plans for the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI),
which called for a long-range continuing commitment
based on construction of the Space Station Freedom,
sending humans back to the Moon, and ultimately sending
astronauts to Mars.
Following this announcement, NASA Administrator
Richard Truly initiated a study of the options to achieve
the president’s goals, headed by Johnson Space Center
Director Aaron Cohen. The “90-Day Study” team,
assembled from program offices and field centers,
developed a reference base from which strategic options
could be derived while still meeting the basic objectives
of the Human Exploration Initiative. The final package
consisted of an end-to-end strategy that began with
robotic missions, exploited the unique capabilities of Space
Station Freedom, and moved forward to the development
of planetary surface systems that could support human
life, without losing sight of programmatic matters such
as resources, management systems, international
participation, and national benefits. On November 29,
1989, Truly briefed the National Space Council’s Blue
Ribbon Panel on the resulting 90-Day Study report.
This time period is bookended by a comprehensive series
of lunar base studies performed by Eagle Engineering
for NASA in 1988-89 and a focused return-to-the-Moon
study, First Lunar Outpost, in 1992-3. This period ended
when the next administration, mindful of its promise to
balance the budget, canceled the SEI.