Word: lunar
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...high points: a space station longer than a football field orbiting 220 miles above the earth; permanent living quarters on the near side of the moon constructed out of lunar metals and used as a base for mining oxygen-rich moon rocks; then, sometime during the 21st century, a manned mission to Mars, at least a yearlong, 35 million-mile voyage. "It is humanity's destiny to strive, to seek and to find," declared the President, "and America's destiny to lead...
Another logical stepping-stone is a lunar base, which could be built by 2000, as a testing ground for technologies necessary for a Martian sojourn. In particular, astronauts would experiment with living quarters in which air and water are recycled. Inhabitants of a lunar base would also begin learning how to mine the moon for raw materials, including trapped gases and minerals, that would permit the base to become almost entirely self-sufficient and thus permanent...
Before such a moon base can be built, NASA will have to get some kind of space station: the massive components needed for a lunar habitat are too heavy to lift from earth and will have to be assembled in space. The station will also be needed for assembling a bulky Mars vehicle and studying the effects of long-term space flight. But a single station may not be the best option. Several experts have suggested breaking it down into smaller units. One such station, the Industrial Space Facility, has already been designed by a Houston firm, Space Industries...
...observant eye at the live footage of the first landing on the moon, it is easy to see why the Apollo mission captured the imagination of the nation as it did. Twenty years (and more) of science fiction movies have been unable to recreate the silent majesty of the lunar landscape on the day it was first marred by human footprints...
TWENTY years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first walked on the moon, President Bush now wants the U.S. to return there. His plan calls for the establishment of a permanent lunar base, which would serve as a way-station for an expedition to Mars, and eventually as a stepping stone for further exploration of the solar system...