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Again, the space station is a very, very critical part of this initiative, and we would envision a mission scenario as follows: we would expect the lunar vehicle to be launched from Earth up to the space station; it would be assembled at the space station; it would fueled at the space station. The crew would go up——the lunar crew would go up to the space station and would get on the vehicle at the space station. It would be launched towards the Moon and the vehicle would be reusable and would stay in lunar orbit waiting for the crew to set up their habitation modules, their research facilities, whatever they happen to be bringing on that flight. They would back up to and rerendezvous with the lunar vehicle and be taken back to the space station. The lunar vehicle would then stay at the space station available to the next trip and the crew would go back down in the space shuttle.

The period from about 2000 to 2005 was envisioned as the period where we would begin the building of an outpost, bringing with the first few flights the first few habitability modules and laboratory modules that I would think would be derivatives of the space station, lab modules, setting up the interior of those, the life support systems, the expert systems, the automation and robotics that's required the would be derivative from the space station work. 

Over the first several flights, some of which would carry astronauts, some of which would just be cargo flights, leaving things on the surface of the Moon for the astronauts to come back later and assemble. We would envision a habitation area, a research facility, probably a rover to get around in, some small machinery so that we could start moving the lunar soil around and use it for shielding, and also a pilot plant to start demonstrating and feasibility of extracting oxygen from the lunar soil. In Apollo we learned that the lunar soil is extremely rich in oxygen, and one of the first things we want to do is set down a small, little plant that demonstrates that we can extract that oxygen from the lunar soil. If we can, that's very significant. We can use it not only on the Moon in the outpost for breathing and for fuel, getting back and forth from the Moon, but it could also be a source of oxygen fuel for our future exploration.

The third phase of this initiative really evolves from the second phase. It's just an expansion of the capabilities and the size of the outpost, and we're calling this phase "At home on the Moon". The capabilities would really evolve to a permanently occupied base. This initiative envisioned that in 2010. That may a little bit early.

One of the advantages of this particular initiatives is that it's very flexible. You can build your outpost as slowly or as quickly as you like. You can have it temporarily tended or permanently occupied, you know, whenever you like. It really doesn't affect the goals that you set for the outpost. You can set priorities and deal with them in turn. You don't have to have the whole outpost by 2010.

We would expect in this initiative that by 2010 the outpost would be permanently occupied. The base would have a closed-loop life support system. It would be doing front-line science research. It would have an operational lunar oxygen plant, and it would be an excellent test bed for our technology development.