NASA STUDY SUMMARY: "Study of Modular Stage Concepts for Lunar Supply Operations"

Here's a study from 1963 on various designs for lunar modules. The plan was to use a modular approach of various combinations of lander stages: descent, ascent, crasher (staged descent), payload, and manned capsule, in order to create a "family" of related landers for both unmanned payloads and manned landers.

It's an interesting concept. Note that all of them are LH2 powered with RL-10 rocket engines as well... these vehicles would have been MASSIVELY more capable for the same amount of propellant/size than the hypergolically powered LM was, due to the additional ISP and efficiency of liquid hydrogen propulsion coupled with the RL-10 engines...

These would make interesting payloads for the Saturn V or the Saturn IB which was planned for use in the testing phases (and even in some operational proposals as well).

later! OL JR

View attachment NASA Study Summary- Comparative Design Study of Modular Stage Concepts for Lunar Supply Ops.txt

Here are pics of the various proposals/variants of stages and setup-- the description of each is in the summary text above...





Later! OL JR

These pics are more variants as described in the text summary...




This last pic is showing the hardware flow for various stage combinations in integration of the vehicle...


That's it for this one! OL JR