News Release 18 -  Space Frontier Conference
Return to the Moon V
July 16 – 18, 2004

I attended the Space Frontier conference on July 16 and 17, 2004 at the Westin Casuarina, Las Vegas, Nevada along with over one hundred people. The following are some the highlights from the outstanding speakers.

Founder's Welcome by Rick Tumlinson, Founder, Space Frontier Foundation, www.ricktumlinson.com. Rick related his experiences as Executive Director and co-Founder of the Foundation for the International Non-Governmental Development of Space (FINDS), a multi-million dollar foundation which funds breakthrough projects. The organization provided $100k in seed money for the Mars Society.  FINDS underwrote and co-sponsored a very successful series of Senate Roundtables on space issues in conjunction with the Foundation and the lobby Pro-Space over the last few years.

• Rich co-founded the firm LunaCorp that produced the first TV commercial shot on the International Space Station for Radio Shack and signed up Dennis Tito who became the world's first "citizen explorer."
• Rick was one of 20 guests invited by the White House for the formal announcement of the President's Space Initiative at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.  He subsequently appeared as an expert witness before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation discussing President's initiative and the future of NASA.

Keynote Address by Dr. Paul Spudis, Commission on Moon Mars & Beyond.  Paul is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Dr Spudis was a member of the nine-member commission, headed by former U.S. Air Force Secretary Edward (Pete) Aldridge. He reviewed the Aldridge commission's goals to space exploration for the long haul. He stated that  the private sector must be given a much larger role in the U.S. space program.  An attendee point out an error in his presentation that comet are composed of antimatter and not ice.

Keynote Address by Wendell Mendell - The Moon as a Stepping Stone to Mars, Dr Mendell manages the Office for Human Exploration Science at NASA Johnson Space Center  His research focus is remote sensing of planetary surfaces, particularly specializing in thermal emission radiometry and spectroscopy of the Moon. He discussed NASA's plans for human exploration of the solar system, establishment of a permanent human base on the Moon.  He was the editor of the volume, Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century; and he received the 1988 Space Pioneer Award for Science and Engineering from the National Space Society for this work.

The other speakers provided more details on orbiting spacecraft around the earth for manufacturing in space and exploring the Moon and Mars. Gene Meyers with the Space Island Group plans to build circular amusement parks that will rotate at 1/3 normal gravity to enable dining, bathing, and other activities without the harmful physical  zero-gravity effects.  The Moon is being considered the test area for having humans living in space before establishing permanent bases on Mars.

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