International manned lunar base - Beginning the 21st century in space

An evaluation is made of requirements for, and advantages in, the creation of a manned lunar base whose functions emphasize astronomical investigations. These astronomical studies would be able to capitalize on the lunar environment's ultrahigh vacuum, highly stable surface, dark and cold sky, low-G, absence of wind, isolation from terrestrial 'noise', locally usable ceramic raw materials, and large radiotelescope dish-supporting hemispherical craters. Large telescope structures would be nearly free of the gravity and wind loads that complicate their design on earth.