Energia Lunar Expedition

Russian manned lunar base. Study 1988. In 1988, with development of the Buran space shuttle completed, Glushko ordered new studies on a lunar based that could be established using the Energia booster.

The more modest lunar expeditions would spend up to 10 days on the surface. Eventually the lunar regolith would be mined for He-3 for use in nuclear fusion power plants on earth.

This isotope was very rare on the earth but had been deposited in the lunar soil by billions of years of solar wind. Use of He-3 would make nuclear fusion conditions much easier to attain, removing one of the major roadblocks to obtaining nuclear fusion conditions in plasma containment reactors.

Crew Size: 3.