Greg Schmidt, Deputy Director, NASA Lunar Science Institute: We’re at the NASA Ames Research Center, at the very first NASA Lunar Science Institute Lunar Science Conference. The moon is a fascinating place once again. We abandoned the moon for decades, but now there’s an international armada of spacecraft that are going there, from a host of different nations, including the United States. What this is about, is looking at the science that we can gain from these missions in moving forward towards eventual human habitation of the moon.
Jennifer Heldmann, Co-Investigator, LCROSS Mission, NASA Ames: So we’re going to the moon, to learn how to live off-planet, how to sustain ourselves and then taking those lessons learned and then going to Mars and then beyond after that. So, the fact is it’s a broader program than just go to the moon and come back and that’s it.
Greg Schmidt: This is a very broad group of people here. We’re talking, of course, a lot of NASA people but actually, even more people from academia. There’s a lot of folks from countries all around the world here and perhaps, one of the most important group is the next generation of lunar scientists. There’s a whole host of students here and are going to be the generation that going to take over from us in studying lunar science.
Chris McKay, Planetary Scientist, NASA Ames: It’s not just studying rocks, it’s not just geo-science. When we go back to the moon for long-term stays we’re going to have to understand how plants grow, how humans respond, effects of radiation, working with the dust, our environmental impact on the lunar environment. This conference is the first time that NASA’s gotten really serious about laying out that whole range of broad science activities.
Greg Schmidt: So count on this happening every July, bringing together all the scientists in the world that are interested in the moon to talk about this, to share results and to plan for the future.
