For: International Lunar Observatory & Power Station: A Dish on the Moon

To: International & National Science Community and Space Agencies;
National & International Observatories and Astronomy Centers

By: Space Age Publishing Company / Lunar Enterprise Corporation, Hawaii and California USA

Deadlines: Notice of Intent to Submit Proposal 31 May 2004; Abstract 31 July 2004; Full Proposal 10 December 2004

Project / Mission Description:

The challenge and opportunity to propose and support the accelerated achieving of an International Lunar Observatory, with enabling power source, arise through the many well-known advantages of astrophysics from the Moon and, more recently and compellingly, through the growing realization that establishing a toe-hold for the next frontier of astronomy simultaneously establishes a foot-hold for lunar base build out.

Which astrophysics objectives, researches and wavelengths, How much financial support, and What kind of involvement should be the Subject of these Proposals from the international & national science community leaders and space agency heads, from the national & international observatory directors and technicians, and from astronomy center and university scientists.

A Dish antenna of 1-3 meters capable of astrophysical data acquisition and electronic transmission, located in the Moon’s South Pole – Aitken Basin region, would be emplaced in 2-3 years, in the 2006-7 timeframe. With Project cost estimated at US$50-75 million, funding of $5M/yr for three years from the six major spacefaring powers – America, Russia, Europe, China, Japan, and India – and contributions from Canada, Mexico and Others, should be achievable. (The thirteen observatories atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, for instance, are funded at more than US$1 billion by national and international sponsors). The follow-on human service mission to the Dish would be achieved through similar strategies.

Primarily a science facility, the ILO Dish also would be realized through involvement of commercial communications and power ventures and of private individual and philanthropic investments. The “Lunar Dish Observatory” Study, contracted by Space Age Publishing Company subsidiary Lunar Enterprise Corporation, was completed by SpaceDev, Inc. of Poway, California, in 2003 and stands already as an entrepreneurially initiated catalyst towards mission success.

Space Age Publishing Company , publisher of Lunar Enterprise Daily and Space Calendar weekly and host last November of the International Lunar Conference 2003 which produced the widely influential “Hawaii Moon Declaration”, will communicate directly with Proposal submitters as necessary and desirable. We respectfully invite your proposal, and salute your enterprise and support for permanent human presence on the Moon.