NASA wants permanent moon base/ Florida company on Mars

[JonathanBelles]

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- NASA's plans for returning people to the moon -- an objective called for by President Bush in 2004 -- includes establishing a permanent outpost that would be used to prepare for a manned trip to Mars.

The moon base would be at either the north or south pole of the moon, NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale said during a news conference Monday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Increased sunlight at the poles would allow better use of solar energy to power the outpost, she said.

NASA's lunar architecture team decided it would be better to establish a base than to conduct individual missions to the moon, as in the Apollo program of the 1960s and 1970s, she said.

Team scientists believe astronauts could use the moon's natural resources to maintain the outpost, and could use the base to prepare for the trip to Mars, an objective also set forth by Bush.

Sorties to other locations on the moon could also be carried out from the outpost, Dale said.

Deputy Associate Administrator Doug Cooke said one promising location is the Shackleton Crater at the south pole.

In addition to having an area that is almost permanently sunlit, it is adjacent to a permanently dark area that might yield water ice.

NASA Associate Administrator Scott Horowitz said the goal is to conduct the first manned missions to the moon by 2020, starting with short stays by four-person crews that would establish the outpost.

He estimated that perhaps by 2024 there might be a continual presence on the surface, with crews rotating in and out, as is done with the international space station.

Before the manned missions, NASA plans a series of robotic missions. The first of these, using the lunar reconnaissance orbiter, is scheduled for 2008.

The orbiter is designed to create high-resolution maps, look for good landing sites and search for water ice and other resources.

NASA said an important component of the moon mission will be international participation.

The space agency will reach out to other nations to determine how they would like to take part.

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Like no place on Earth

A New Port Richey company has joined the race to colonize and commercialize Mars, maybe as soon as 2025.

By KRIS HUNDLEY, Times Staff Writer
Published December 5, 2006
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[Handout Photo]
The entrepreneurs foresee the day when they could use low-cost launch services to send a dozen settlers to Mars.

NEW PORT RICHEY - For both Mark Homnick and Joseph Palaia IV, the turning point came after reading The Case for Mars, a 1996 book by aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin.

Zubrin argued that creating a settlement on Mars is not only feasible, it is the kind of technological challenge that Western civilization needs. Palaia, weaned on Star Trek episodes, and Homnick, a fan of the mid 1960s TV series Fireball XL5, were hooked.

Today, Homnick is chief executive and Palaia is vice president of New Port Richey's 4Frontiers Corp., which seeks to colonize and commercialize the Red Planet.

The entrepreneurs foresee the day - perhaps as soon as 2025 - when they could use low-cost launch services now being developed to send a dozen settlers to Mars. Those pioneers would build communities and mine resources that could be used by explorers on the moon or shipped back to Earth.

Far-fetched? Maybe. Maybe not. NASA on Monday unveiled its own plans for a permanent base on the moon to be started around 2020.

"This is no science fiction. There are no technological breakthroughs required," said Palaia, who is in the process of relocating to the area from Boston. "There are just a lot of systems that need to be engineered."

At this point 4Frontiers, run from Homnick's home, is more about passion than profit. But they insist there are both long- and short-term business reasons for jumping into the space race.

"It's almost like another dot-com boom," said Palaia, referring to the growing number of business startups engaged in everything from commercial launch companies to space tourism. "The X-Prize to encourage and reward manned civilian spaceflight catalyzed a group of people who decided if they sit around and wait for NASA, it might not happen. And there are tremendous opportunities to generate capital."

Homnick, 49, who moved to Pasco County after taking early retirement from semiconductor giant Intel Corp., joined author Zubrin's Mars Society. About a year ago, he attended one of its meetings at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Palaia, a 27-year-old doing his graduate work in nuclear engineering at MIT, was at the same meeting where techies of all ages were speculating on what a self-sustaining Mars settlement might look like.

"This is the type of thing they talk about at MIT," said Homnick, who often gets a different response from his neighbors in New Port Richey. "They live on the border there. You can have theoretical discussions about living on Mars without anyone batting an eye."

4Frontiers has developed a business plan and is seeking $30-million in initial financing. The company is now self-funded. As evidence, Homnick, a mechanical engineer who built wafer fabrication plants for Intel for a decade, points to an empty dock next to his waterfront home.

"The company is my boat," he said. "I can get a boat anytime."

Advisory team

The company's first step has been to assemble a team of 45 advisers, specialists in everything from mining to robotics to hydrogeology, to design a habitat for the Mars surface. Using the explorers Lewis and Clark as role models, the scientists believe that space-going experts, equipped with the right fuel and tools, could use the carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen on Mars to create a self-sustaining community.

"For tech folks who actually understand what would be involved in making this work, it is an almost irresistible challenge," Homnick said of the consultants, who receive a stipend for their work.

4Frontiers hopes to leverage the consultants' expertise and technologies that emerge from their research for licensing and consulting work. Palaia just completed such an assignment, applying research he has done for the Mars project to a semiconductor manufacturer's work in Massachusetts.

To make some money in the meantime, the company is considering a tourist draw by building a mock-up of its proposed Mars installation in Florida or New Mexico.

Homnick defended the company's combination of high science and mass infotainment.

"We need public support to make this happen," he said. "As long as our replica is real science based, it could be our greatest asset."

Though the public might expect a government entity like NASA to spearhead a Mars settlement, 4Frontiers' founders believe entrepreneurs like themselves are likely to get there first.

"We have a good relationship with NASA and their research has made a lot of work possible," said Homnick, adding that a NASA representative is on his company's advisory board. "But NASA's focus is on exploration, not long-term habitation."

Though Homnick thinks he will be too old to make the journey to Mars, Palaia is so sure he'll go he made it a condition of his marriage. (His wife has no interest in space travel.) The trip to Mars takes six months; round-trip would take three years.

But Palaia expects early settlers will stay longer, like many early explorers to North America who crossed an ocean never to return.

"If you had the opportunity to be there in the beginning, when America was settled, what would you pay?" Palaia asked. "It's time for that to happen again."

Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727)892-2996.



[Last modified December 4, 2006, 23:22:25]

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i can definatly see these happening on both the moon and mars within my lifetime. the only thing i wonder is how they will get people and equiptment to those places.