Rocket City Archives - Space Defense Newsletter

A LUNAR TOURIST BOOM? IT'S ONLY 30 YEARS AWAY Have a yearning for faraway places? Looking for something out of the ordinary? How about a trip to the moon that is if you can wait 30 years? That's how long it will be before commercial moon flights say H. H. Koelle, MSFC's director of future projects. Such travel might be possible even sooner, Koelle says, if there is an unexpected breakthrough in rocketry. "There is still a long way to go," he cautioned, "before space trips become possible for anyone other than test pilots. However, by 1980 or 1990 we can expect to open the first commercial space line to earth orbit and to the moon." Koelle made his remarks in a recent report to the American Rocket Society's committee on missiles and space vehicles. In the report he envisioned rocket-powered planes "large enough to transport more than 50 passengers into orbit at a time." These planes would be big brothers of today's experimental X-15, and would have controllable engines to limit blastoff and touchdown speeds for the sake of passenger comfort. Koelle said the hope was to see earth-to-orbit trips become a convenient and inexpensive as a trip to Europe, with a flight to the moon no more expensive than a trip around the planet today. He indicated this could be achieved by developing reusable rockets so the "aerospace planes" could make many trips, like jetliners, rather than just one costly voyage as missiles now do. Koelle Visionary German-American engineer worked at Huntsville as Director of Future Projects for von Braun 1955-1965. Headed Lunex moon base project; key role in engine selection for Saturn. 30 years or 1992 He missed the mark by 30 years, he died in 2011 just a few years short of seeing the first reusable rocket in 2016