New York Space Society – Chapter of
the National Space Society
6/19/04
Return To The Moon Presentation
By: Manny Pimenta
Space Frontier Foundation
The Space Frontier Foundation is an organization of space enthusiasts, advocates and entrepreneurs who are dedicated to opening the space frontier for all of humanity within our lifetime. The single most important characteristic that sets them apart is that they are a group of doers – people who take action and who have an established record of impressive accomplishments already. From Dennis Tito’s historic adventure as the world’s first space tourist, to David Gump’s Luancorp robotic mission to the Moon, to Jim Benson’s SpaceDev which designed the rocket propulsion system for Burt Rutan’s successful space launch of SpaceShipOne, all of these and many more were accomplished by the Foundationeers. And we are just getting started.
The Return To the Moon Project aims at an objective which encompasses all of the tenets of our mission statement: The goal of the Return To The Moon Project is to use all of our tools and resources to bring about the establishment of a large scale, permanent lunar settlement. As it is a well known principle that goals are only as real as they are specific, these general objectives are further refined into the following:
The establishment of a permanent, large scale lunar settlement, capable of providing a comfortable living and working environment for at least 300 people, and which is economically viable – i.e. profitable. If it pays, we will stay.
Of these 300 people, 100 are to consist of a transient population of tourists that stay on the Moon for one or two weeks and are then replaced by the next group of vacationing visitors. This requirement is essential to the goal of “opening the space frontier to all of humanity” rather than just a highly select group of astronauts and scientists. Every person on Earth who has a dream to visit another planet within their lifetime, should have the opportunity to go to the Moon. We, at the Return To The Moon Project aim to make that dream a real possibility by 2025.
Tourism will be only one of perhaps five or six primary economic activities envisioned for a profitable lunar settlement. Among the others we find: prospecting for precious metals, new industrial processes such as those that depend on high quality vacuum environments, large scale scientific research using high performance telescope and interferometer “farms” that will accelerate the pace of discovery by orders of magnitude, detection and mitigation of Near Earth Object (NEO) threats, support operations for other space activities (such as extended Mars missions, asteroid capture and mining), harvesting of Helium 3 as a clean new energy source, and so on.
As to the question of why we should go to the Moon there are many answers but all of them generally fall into one of the following categories: Survival, Prosperity, Adventure.
The Moon can help assure our survival by becoming an observation post for Earth threatening asteroids, a base of operations to launch intercept missions to divert those threats, provide the Earth with new, clean energy sources that halt the damage to our environment, providing a future full of hope and possibility that will focus the world’s attention outward on a shared vision of progress and benefit for all of humanity. The riches in materials and energy to be had from colonizing the Moon and becoming a true space faring civilization will improve the living standards of every person on Earth and greatly increase the chances that every person will live in freedom and dignity in a world that works for everyone with no one left out.
All this can be had today. The technology to build that 300 person lunar settlement, to transport people by the thousands every year to the Moon and back, to create that wonderful new prosperity that we envision, already exists. We know how to do it.
We could have all of those things today if only we had truly visionary leaders who were dedicated to their mission of serving the people who entrusted them with our futures.
Each one of us who cares about what kind of world we are living in, what kind of world our children will be living in and raising their own children in, must do his or her part. We need you. Everyone’s help, whether little or great, is needed to make these things happen. We cannot leave it to our so-called leaders or to other people to assure our future in space and our survival as a civilization. You have to get involved and do whatever you can. You can talk to people and pass this vision on. You can call your congressmen or senator and express to them how important space is to our future. You can get involved and participate in this great new adventure.
I invite every one of you to help create this new world.
The Moon is the next logical step if we, as a civilization, are going to embrace our destiny and claim space as our birthright. This is Humanity’s Manifest Destiny.
The choice is stark and clear: we can either stay on our current path of limited thinking, pessimism and destruction or we can choose the possibility of unlimited prosperity and hope in a bright, peaceful and sustainable future where every human being has a chance at an extraordinary life.
RETURN TO THE MOON, AND STAY !
New York Chapter