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Fort Apache: The Moon

© Dane Mitchell Donato

Sitting in front of me is a fascinating document. Dating from 1959, “Project Horizon Report: A U.S. Army Study For The Establishment of A Lunar Base“ was a secret feasibility study that outlined the building and manning of an army post on the moon.

According to this pre-Apollo program document, a document created by various Army departments including the Werner Von Braun missile team and Army Ballistic Missile Agency, it was expected to have a manned military lunar base by 1966.

This would have been quite a feat. By the end of 1964, if the authors of this study were correct, there would have been over 70 Saturn II launches (The Saturn II was the rocket that was used through Apollo and into Space Lab) just to construct the moon base. The funding alone for such a venture would have been beyond belief, even by late 1950 dollars. And looking back at the very few Saturn launches used during the entire run of the Apollo program, Horizon’s approximately 5.3 launches per month to build the underground base, let alone man the thing, was in the realm of science fiction.

But Horizon was important, if you believe the authors of this study. In fact, they stated that this project should encompass “the authority and priority similar to the Manhattan Project in World War II.”

To what end? Under the heading of Operational Concept, we read that

“There is a requirement for a manned military outpost on the moon. The lunar outpost is required to develop and protect potential United States interests on the moon, to develop techniques in moon-based surveillance of the earth and space, in communications relay, and in operations on the surface of the moon...and to support scientific investigations on the moon.”

Scientific investigations? Of course, scienctific objectives were always a part of why we wanted to go into space in the first place, and the scientific component of any space shot, manned or not, was always a part of how we justified and funded those expensive space jaunts, then and now.

But back to the report. A little later, the study states that

“The establishment of a manned base of operations on the moon has tremendous military and scientific potential. Because invaluable scientific, military and political prestige will come to the nation that first establishes a lunar base, it is impetrative that the United States be first.”

That is a prime example of taking the high ground first. Then we read that

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