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military space command was no exception to an ongoing practice. The only difference was that the general didn't want the unified command to exercise authority solely over the moon base itself; he wanted it extended to control and utilize exclusively military satellites, military space vehicles, space surveillance systems, and the entire logistical network installed to support these military assets. To the general, being second to the Soviet Union in deploying and supporting a permanent lunar outpost would have been disastrous not only to our national prestige but to our very democratic system itself. In Arthur Trudeau's estimation, the Soviet Union was currently planning to fortify a lunar base by the middle 1960s and declare it Soviet territory. He believed that if the United States tried to land on the moon, especially if we tried to establish a base of operations there, the Soviets would have propagandized the event as an act of war, an invasion of its territory, and would have tried to characterize the United States as the aggressor and our presence as a hostile act. If they defended the moon as one of their colonies, or if they were the proxy force on behalf of the extraterrestrials with whom they had forged a military treaty, the United States would be in a weakened position. Thus, General Trudeau concluded and so advised his chief of the Ordnance Missile Command, it was of the utmost urgency that the U.S. Army devise a feasible plan to have a manned landing on the lunar surface by spring 1965, with a fully operational lunar outpost deployed on the moon by late 1966 at a cost over an eight and a half year period of $6 billion. The first two astronauts, the spear head of the scouting crew, were scheduled to touch down on the lunar surface in April 1965, in an area near the lunar equator where, according to the surveys, the army believed the terrain would support multiple landing and lift off facilities and the construction of a cylindrical, ranch house type of structure with tubular walls built beneath the surface into a crevice that would house an initial twelve personnel. The bulk of the construction materials for the lunar outpost, about 300,000 pounds, would already be on the site, having been transported there over the previous three months. According to the army plan, an additional190,000 pounds of cargo would be sent to the moon from April1965 through November 1966. And from December 1966 through December 1967, another 266,000 pounds of cargo and supplies would be scheduled to arrive at the now operational moon base. It is April 1965, and a lunar vehicle with a crew of two astronauts has just touched down on the moon's surface. Although the vehicle has an immediate lift off capability to return the astronauts to Earth, their scouting from orbit has determined that the area is safe and that there are no threats from either the Soviets or any extraterrestrials. The radio crackles with the team's first instructions. "This is Horizon control, Moonbase. You are go for the first twenty-four hours, " Horizon control at the Cocoa Beach, Florida, Cape Canaveral Space Command Center advises the astronauts. They secure their lander, which, if they receive the go to stay for additional periods, will ultimately become their cabin for the next two months as the construction crews arrive from Earth to begin the assembly of the lunar outpost. However, even before the first manned cargo ships arrive, the advance crew of two astronauts will confirm the condition of the cargo that has already been delivered to the site, refine the environmental studies that have been conducted by the unmanned surveillance probes, and verify that the initial measurements and assumptions for the site of the moon base are correct. By July 1965, the first crew of nine men arrive to begin laying the cylindrical tubes in the crevice beneath the surface and install the two portable atomic reactors that will power the entire outpost. A number of factors influenced the army's decision to sink the main structures beneath the lunar surface. The most important of these were the uniform temperatures, the insulation of the lunar surface material itself, protection from a potentially hazardous shower of small meteors and meteorites, camouflage and security, and protection from the kinds of radiation particles that are normally prevented from reaching Earth by our atmosphere. Army engineers designed the cylindrical housing units to look and act like vacuum tank thermos bottles with a double wall with a special insulation between. The thermos design would prevent heat loss and so insulate the housing unit so that just the heal radiated by the internal artificial lighting system would be more than adequate to maintain a comfortable temperature inside. The crew's atmosphere was to be maintained by insulated tanks containing liquid oxygen and nitrogen with the waste moisture and carbon dioxide absorbed by solid chemicals and recycled through a dehumidifier. Eventually, as the base became more permanent and new crews were rotated in and out, a more efficient recycling system was to be installed. The initial construction crew was assigned to live in a temporary configuration of cylindrical quarters as their numbers were increased by an additional six men and more supplies. Like the permanent facility, the temporary construction cabin would be buried in a crevice beneath the lunar surface, but it would be smaller than the permanent cabin and have none of the laboratory facilities that were to be built in the permanent structure. From the component parts already shipped to the landing site, the construction crew was to assemble a lunar surface rover, a digging and trenching vehicle - similar to a backhoe - and a forklift type of vehicle that would also serve as a type of crane. With just these three devices, the army believed, a crew of fifteen workers could assemble a permanent outpost out of prefabricated components. The Horizon plan for construction of facilities in 65