"Houston, the Halliburton has landed."

Surely someone has suggested this before, but if the lander is American, then give it a corporate sponsor.

Some corporate sponsors would be funny:

"Houston, the Co-Co Puffs has landed."

Other funny corporate sponsors include Jack Daniels Whiskey, Kleenix tissues, Microsoft, Warner Brothers ("What's up, Doc?"), and Levi's jeans.

A company that required the astronauts to repeat their slogan would be funny as well. Suppose Alltel telecommunications sponsored the mission:

"Houston, the Alltel has landed. Come and get your love."

Herpderp

You ought to call it U.S.S. Kirkland or something similar. It could then be blown up after a witty order of "Beam it up, Hans"

Balance The Realities

For the moon mission to make sense in the context of the movie, it has to be balanced with reality. We can't just have the normal moon mission as currently predicted, or we can't have super advanced military spaceships. They have to effect each other in certain ways, no matter how secret the military side may be.

Previously, I've advocated Orion style nuclear pulse engines and nuclear thermal rockets as the propulsion methods for the military ships, as those are technologies that would be available in the seventies and eighties if public pressure didn't prevail over nuclear testing. Recently, the VASIMR plasma engine was tested and it could prove to be an extremely efficient space engine technology, but for optimum efficiency it needs a nuclear generator.
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-10/plasma-rockets-could-make-pit-stops-mars-and-beyond

The story can go like the below. The military finds out about the VASIMR plasma engine and secretly pressures NASA through Congress to combine it with a secret military nuclear engine already made for spaceships. The US smooths things over with foreign governments, and it works because every country secretly wants the scouting mission to happen. Some countries give token objection in public but even they help make nuclear engines in space palletable to the public.

The military gets the moon mission crew to mostly be secret military spaceship crewmen, but NASA gets a few scientists into the crew anyway.

The moon mission now has a true spaceship and is in reality a military mission that the public and scientist crewmembers think is civilian and purely scientific. The actual primary mission is to scout the moon for Nazis.

The ship is also secretly armed. The military got a black box experiment onto the ship called the Lunar Atmospheric and Surface Energy Research analyser, which is actually a laser. See the acronym of the name?

The military segment of the crew has secret orders that mostly mesh pretty well with the over all mission. But, things go wrong and the non-military segment of the crew is taken by complete surprise when the ship is attacked by Nazis, and the LASER turns out to be a weapon, not a spectroscope. The scientist's astrnaought training is still good and they do their best to keep up with the military personnel, but are struggling with shock over the alienness of the situation.

The idea behind the ship for the military is, it's a top of the line scout, and the first spaceship ever launched against the Nazis, not counting Apollo program attempts to find signs of the Nazis, which failed. The military's space warships are all nuclear powered and would be extremely obvious if launched, amateur astronomers could see the ships. Since they're nuclear powered, they can't launch them without extremely good reason. So, the ships are kept on the ground ready for launch in case of emergency. The NASA ship is the military's first chance to have a spaceship in space in a way that no one would question.

As for what the ship looks like, it should be purely realistic. Engine in back, sides lined with radiators, and a crew section at the bow. The laser should have two telescope like mounts 180 degrees opposite each other for 360 degree coverage. The ship is fast and very fuel efficient for long ranges. The ships in the below page are perfect.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3c2.html

Awesome.

I think it would be great if the moon landers name could have some sort of a double meaning.

Example: the moonlander's name is "Awesome", so the American astronaut's could sometimes shout something like: "Dude, thats Awesome!" or "Prepare for the Awesome".

I dunno if those kind of names are believable though :/

There is already a NASA Program Name for the Mission...

There is already a NASA program name for the spacecraft that will return to the moon - Orion/Altair. (See http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/mmb/orion_announcement.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28spacecraft%29, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_%28spacecraft%29for more info.) There are plenty of mockups and graphics representing the vehicles.

I'm betting that the first mission to the moon will be named either Eagle (first lunar lander - note that Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila The Eagle), Challenger or Columbia (tribute to the lost missions).

A potential variation might be to have the return landing conducted by a private company (like Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic). Or maybe a race between public (Virgin Galactic) and government (NASA). One arrives within minutes of the other - both are taken captive by the Nazis.

spaceship/ moon lander names

due to the fact that in the real world by the year 2018 we will have the reality of the "american union" of america, mexico and canada as one large linked continent with one ruler, i believe it should be named based on something with shows a joint effort on their parts.

Spaceship: Destiny 1 (because thats what the union will want to put forward that it is their "destiny" to return to the moon united, all as one)

Lander (if you have one in the movie): Alice 1 (Alice goes down the rabbit hole to find a bunch of nazis!)

Name for the Moon Lander

U.S.S. Icarus
(Dare me to fly too high!)
U.S.S. Prometheus
(Now to share Fire with all mankind!)
U.S.S. Samson
(From Bible story Samson and Delilah)
U.S.S. Von Braun
(Ironic isn't it?)
U.S.S. Nietzsche
(I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?)
U.S.S. Oppenheimer
(Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds)
U.S.S. Armstrong
(What else would you call a lander going to the moon?)
U.S.S. Aldrin
(While playing Buzz Aldrin's "Rocket Experience" if possible)
U.S.S. Freedom
(Which gets blown up by Nazi's, how poetic)

A couple of names

Endurance

Aurora

Savannah
- The name of the steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean & also NS Savannah the first nuclear-powered merchant ship.

Intrepid
- Name of the yacht that won the America's Cup in 1967 and 1970
- The name of a number of US warships including an aircraft carrier.
- The class of ship of USS Voyager in Star Trek: Voyager

Beagle (or Beagle 3)
- HMS Beagle carried Charles Darwin
- Beagle 2, unsuccessful Mars lander

Terra Nova
- New Land (or Newfoundland) in Latin
- Involved in a number of Antarctic Expeditions. Most notably the Terra Nova Expedition (1910–1913) involving Robert Scott's attempt to reach the south pole first (they were second after the Roald Amundsen team).

Fram
- Arctic and Antarctic exploration vessel. Lays came to be the farthest north and south sailing wooden vessel.
- Fram was used by Roald Amundsen in his southern polar expedition (1910 to 1912, first to reach the South Pole).

I like Terra Nova, think it would work very well as a spaceship name.

USS Kennedy

named after the president...

special significance when it gets blown to hell

Odysseus

Odysseus, MM(Mission Moon)-1

In my opinion this would be an adequate name, because Odysseus was a adventurous man, dont knowing if he will return home.