Lunar Exploration System for Apollo [NASA]

American manned lunar base. Cancelled 1968. LESA (Lunar Exploration System for Apollo) represented the ultimate lunar base concept studied by NASA prior to the cancellation of further Saturn V production in June 1968. LESA would provide the payload to allow a 90-day exploration mission by thee astronauts, including 1500 miles of exploratory traverses. An early target would be the Kepler region, with the base located southeast of the crater. First the LESA would be landed on the surface. A second Saturn V launch would deliver three astronauts to the landing site aboard a LEM Taxi. They would place the LESA shelter in operation, install a semi-permanent geophysical monitoring station, and deploy the roving vehicle. Two of the crew would embark on an exploratory traverse while the third remained at the shelter. Three or more such traverses would be undertaken during the mission, covering 14 geological features of interest as much as 400 km from the base. Later Model 4 LESA systems