Lunar outpost (NASA)

A lunar outpost was an element of the George W. Bush era Vision for Space Exploration, which has been replaced with President Barack Obama's space policy. The outpost would have been an inhabited facility on the surface of the Moon. At the time it was proposed, NASA was to construct the outpost over the five years between 2019 and 2024. The United States Congress directed that the U.S. portion, "shall be designated the Neil A. Armstrong Lunar Outpost".

On December 4, 2006, NASA announced the conclusion of its Global Exploration Strategy and Lunar Architecture Study. The Lunar Architecture Study's purpose was to "define a series of lunar missions constituting NASA's Lunar campaign to fulfill the Lunar Exploration elements" of the Vision for Space Exploration. What resulted was a basic plan for a lunar outpost near one of the poles of the Moon, which would permanently house astronauts in six-month shifts. These studies were made before the discovery of water ice (5.6 ± 2.9% by mass) in a polar crater, which may substantially affect plans.

A reference architecture was established for this outpost, based on a location on the rim of the Shackleton crater, located in the immense South Pole-Aitken basin, near the Moon's south pole. At a presentation on December 4, 2006, Doug Cooke (Deputy Associate Administrator, NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate) described an area "that is... sunlit... 75 to 80 percent of the time, and it is adjacent to a permanently dark region in which there are potentially volatiles that we can extract and use.... This sunlit area is about the size of the Washington Mall." (approximately 1.25 km²). The Indian Chandrayaan orbiter helped in the determination of the precise location of the outpost.

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