1959 ABMA Report: Lunar Soft Landing Study

[Proponent]

Every once in a while, I stumble across a new early-Saturn document on NTRS.

P.S. I've now attached version of the document in which three anomalously rotated pages are now the right way round.

[Blackstar]

[leovinus]

Every once in a while, I stumble across a new early-Saturn document on NTRS.

P.S. I've now attached version of the document in which three anomalously rotated pages are now the right way round.

Fascinating, thanks for that! While this study is from ABMA in 1959, I feel vibes of early 60s Lockheed, Boeing and USGS Lunar studies. Per the last page, George von Tiesenhausen signed off on the study. Would love to read more related ABMA lunar material if we can find it.

Per page 1 and 2, this is report DLS-TN-26-59, NASA contractor report CR 51675, X63 81720 by Owen L. Sparks. For follow-up research, what was the NTRS number if you don't mind me asking?

[Proponent]

Every once in a while, I stumble across a new early-Saturn document on NTRS.

P.S. I've now attached version of the document in which three anomalously rotated pages are now the right way round.

Fascinating, thanks for that! While this study is from ABMA in 1959, I feel vibes of early 60s Lockheed, Boeing and USGS Lunar studies. Per the last page, George von Tiesenhausen signed off on the study. Would love to read more related ABMA lunar material if we can find it.

Per page 1 and 2, this is report DLS-TN-26-59, NASA contractor report CR 51675, X63 81720 by Owen L. Sparks. For follow-up research, what was the NTRS number if you don't mind me asking?

The NTRS ID number is 19630044309.

Lunar Soft Landing Study for National Aeronautical and Space Administration: Systems Support Equipment (U)

[leovinus]

Such a fascinating report  DLS-TN-26-59 from Dec 17 1959 does not exist on its own. A little weekend browsing shows that

- Per NTRS titles, we see that we have NTRS numbers
19630044309 ,LUNAR SOFT LANDING STUDY, 1959,  (the one you attached in post #1)
and
19690090175 ,Lunar soft landing study, 1961,
which begs the question whether the later 19690090175 from 1961 is an updated or full version.

- There was a similar report ABMA report "Final report on the lunar soft landing study", R-DV-SP-1-60, 1960 which would be a nice read as well. Sadly, I see no copies anywhere.

- The "Lunar soft landing study" is mentioned in "Missiles and Ventures Into Space" 1960-1961 Report, Volume 70, Issues 5-9, 1961 on page 55, attached. HaitiTrust has a readable copy.

- Per the attached page, there was an excerpt of the final report as R-DV-SP-2-60 and I suspect that would be NTRS
19660089040 titled "Excerpts from final report on the lunar soft landing study", 1960.

- For more ABMA context, we see that there was a program called "A Lunar exploration program based upon Saturn boosted systems", Report Nr DV-TR-2-60, Feb 1, 1960. A JBIS publication refers explicitly to the  DLS-TN-26-59 discussed here. Google says there should be a book of 167 or 584 pages at DTIC from 1960 as https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD0400663 and indeed, it is attached. This might be the same as NTRS 19660089040 as the excerpts start with "Payload packages". Seems like the excerpt was 167 pages and the full report 584 pages? This is a very "rich" document where I'll spent some more time reading
PS: page 19 has the same roving vehicle as in post #2 here

- Seem like the full "A Lunar exploration program based upon Saturn boosted systems" is still at NASA HQ History division in Record Group 4 (RG4), box 12055, where it says
>> rg_4_federal_agencies_march2020.csv:,12055,FEDERAL AGENCIES,1958-1960,"Thursday, August 8, 1996",US ARMY - LUNAR EXPLORATION,US ARMY - LUNAR EXPLORATION,"US Army Ordnance Missile Command (AOMC) report: ""Saturn System Study"" re Saturn Launch Vehicles; AOMC report: ""A Lunar Exploration Program Based upon Saturn-Boosted Systems""; and copy of US Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) report to NASA on ABMA contributions to space flight.",MANUSCRIPTS,,US ARMY ORDNANCE MISSILE COMMAND (AOMC),"US ARMY ORDNANCE MISSILE COMMAND (AOMC), US ARMY BALLISTIC MISSILE AGENCY (ABMA), MANNED LUNAR LANDING, SPACE VEHICLE RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY, OFFICE OF, SATURN LAUNCH VEHICLES, MANNED SPACE FLIGHT"

- Also per the attached page from  "Missiles and Ventures Into Space", there were more publications in 1960 on early ideas for lunar surface vehicles

- Probably only vaguely related via Saturn, at Nasa HQ history, we see that in Record Group (RG-11) there is a report in box 10312  titled
IBM report: ""Utilization of the Saturn 5 Instrument Unit for Spent S-IVB Lunar Soft Landing - Technical Proposal"".
which sounds fun as NASA considered landing a spent S-IVB on the lunar surface it seems.

[Blackstar]

A few of the images.

[Blackstar]

A few of the images.