The Soviets were so satisfied with the results of their Sputnik program that in 1962, they launched a top-secret project to develop a self-sufficient moonbase. The plan was codenamed Zvezda or Star, and its objective was to take over the Moon before the Americans.The objective was overly ambitious and called for the establishment of several habitation modules that would be half-buried with regolith to conceal them. They would also be equipped with a wheeled chassis to reposition the base.Zvezda’s development looked promising until disaster struck the N1 human lunar expedition program.The powerful rocket that would carry the facility’s components to the Moon began suffering a series of crucial setbacks, and it looked like there was no other vehicle on the market that could be up to the task. That is, until a prominent engineer and designer came up with a potential solution…