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| Image Source: Phil Smith |
| Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii's Govenor, recently signed Bill HB 2873 that is intended to make the Big Island a center for companies and space agencies working to make the moon habitable. |
The governor signed HB 2873 into law, which transfers the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES) from the University of Hawaii to the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism’s Office of Aerospace Development, and establishes a PISCES board of directors and appropriates funds.
The legislation authorizes the creation of a research park, overseen by the PISCES, that will develop and test technology needed to allow people to live on the moon's surface, at least temporarily.
The research includes figuring out how to make the most out of the moon’s resources, a focus of a NASA program that will return to the island next month for additional testing.
The Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) program's goal is to sustain affordable human and robotic space exploration, the ability to live off the land at the exploration site will be essential. NASA calls this ability in situ resource
utilization (ISRU) and is focusing on finding ways to sustain missions first on the Moon and then on Mars.
Previous tests in 2008 and 2010 were successful, and the tests that will occur in late July on the slopes of Mauna Kea will be its last, said John Hamilton, PISCES deputy director.
A mission to the moon with the technology would be next, possibly as early as 2014, he said.
Making such a hostile environment people friendly goes beyond creating oxygen or fuel. Waste needs to be managed, food needs to be grown, water needs to be extracted — all of which without the reliance of supplies from Earth.
The idea is that private business and government space programs from all nations can work together at the new research park to develop and test the space age technology needed to colonize the moon.
“We have the opportunity to establish the premier surface system testing site in the world,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton and Christian Andersen, PISCES operations manager, said the Big Island of Hawaii is the perfect testing ground because it is made of the same material as the moon, basalt rock, and is conveniently located between most of the world’s space-faring nations.
NASA will be involved with the research park, but it remains to be seen whether it will have an office there.
The research park will also leverage of the expanding private space industry. When humans return to the moon, it will likely be done with a private rocket. Companies are already competing to send a robot to the moon in 2015 to win $30 million in prizes through Google’s Lunar X PRIZE competition.
Additionally, SpaceX, which recently successfully docked a rocket with the International Space Station, also anticipates having a rocket capable of carrying large payloads to the moon by 2017, Rasky said.
“Once you can get significant payloads on the lunar surface … then you can be looking seriously at the first robotic capabilities on the moon in those time frames,” he said.
Optimistically, Rasky said, people could be making long trips on the lunar surface within two to five years after that.
Hamilton said PISCES hopes to begin signing contracts with companies and space agencies in August to locate at the research park, possibly to be established at the W.H. Shipman Industrial Park outside Hilo.
SOURCE Hawaii Tribune Herald via Blogging Life Extension
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