Please Vote! There are three separate issues to vote for:

1) http://opennasa.ideascale.com/a/dtd/28439-7044

2) http://www.openenergy.ideascale.com/a/ideafactory.do?id=7031

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2) http://www.openenergy.ideascale.com/a/dtd/27671-7031

3) http://openostp.ideascale.com/a/dtd/31467-7129

On OpenGov, the idea of a space solar power conference is in the lead. Check out the OpenGov Tracker. OpenGov is looking at ideas to open up the US government most agencies are involved and have... On OpenGov, the idea of a space solar power conference is in the lead. Check out the OpenGov is looking at ideas to open up the US government most agencies are involved and have sites. Ideas will be taken and voted on until March 19th. The suggestion of a space solar power conference is running first at

http://opennasa.ideascale.com/a/dtd/28439-7044 OpenNASA as well as across the whole government, running second on

http://www.openenergy.ideascale.com/a/ideafactory.do?id=7031
OpenEnergy with idea for

http://www.openenergy.ideascale.com/a/dtd/27671-7031 Orbital
Solar Transmissions running third and the space solar power conference is fourth on the

http://openostp.ideascale.com/a/dtd/31467-7129 at OpenOSTP Voting for these is a great way to push the concept of space solar power in the US government and to the public. A few votes can make a big difference in this case.

Helium-3 Crisis! Demand now exceeds supply by a factor of ten. The price has jumped to $2,000 a liter from $100 in the last few years

The NYT article fails to mention that Helium-3 is relatively abundant on the Moon.

"We are ecstatic," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water."

A Japanese team headed by Junichi Haruyama has analyzed data from the JAXA Kaguya mission to find these holes in the ground, and after two years of searching, they've found one in the Marius Hills region

http://digg.com/d318MP0

This discovery, made by the ESA-ISRO instrument "Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer" (SARA) onboard the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, suggests how water is likely being created on the lunar surface.

The Moon is a big sponge that absorbs electrically charged particles given out by the Sun. These particles interact with the oxygen present in some dust grains on the lunar surface, producing water.

But there is a mystery....

One in 5 protons bounces off into space and is not absorbed. This was completely unexpected and remains unexplained.

New instruments can be designed to detect the bouncing protons, to learn more about the processes.

We have just scratched the surface of the Moon, stay tuned for more amazing discoveries.

Everything we post to the blog will now be automatically sent out over our twitter feed.

The twitter feed, in turn, feeds into our linked in group news tab.

Our facebook page also feeds into the Twitter feed.

Moon Society has resources, e.g. fora, on most internet social networks. Join us!

Thanks to Robert Brand in Australia (Echoes of Apollo) for giving us this idea.

Buzz Aldrin published a proposal for a public/private/international plan to open the Moon for exploration and development in the Huffington Post

http://digg.com/d3176tD

Below are key excerpts:

* “I propose instead America call the world to the Moon. In a new
global effort to use the Moon to establish a global space consortium
with a lunar surface facility as its epicenter, “
* “... competition, in an Apollo-style race back to the Moon, would
be a fruitless exercise in national hubris whose rewards, if we “won”
again, would prove fleeting”
* “I am proposing a different way back to the Moon: international
collaboration. “
* “... the goal of creating a new public-private partnership to
develop the Moon. I call it the Lunar Infrastructure Development
Corporation (LIDC). The purpose of the LIDC would be to enable the
nations of the Earth to join together and return to the Moon as an
international cooperative venture. The LIDC will pool the financial,
technical and human resources of its member nations to build the lunar
communication, navigation and transportation systems needed for human exploration of the Moon. It would be a public/private global
partnership to make the Moon accessible to all humanity. The LIDC will
build the communication and navigation satellites needed by future
lunar travelers, develop fuel depots using lunar LOX – perhaps derived
from the recently discovered lunar water-and construct habitats that
will shelter space travelers while on the surface. It will enable a
sustainable human presence on the Moon that will be accessible to all
the nations on Earth. “
* “Unlike the International Space Station (ISS), which is governed
by complex treaties, the LIDC will have the same flexibility as an NGO
in working with different nations and private entities to finance
build and operate the facilities and equipment needed for lunar
exploration. “
* “To do so [i.e., honoring the astronauts of the Apollo Era
Missions] doesn’t require rerunning a long-ago Cold War race in which
America plays the role of a space-going Colonial power.

Moon Society Officers and Directors, who collectively make up the Management Committee gave the Moon Society's official endorsement.

The email vote was unanimous. As Ben Nault, Director from Tucson, put
it:

“Probably the main reason the ISS is still "alive" and supported by
Congress is that it is part of a number of international agreements.
Backing out of these agreement would have financial, political and
diplomatic repercussions on the US. Therefore, having an international
component helps large complex programs survive the transition to
different administrations and different congressional moods. The
international angle gives long-term "sustainability" to the Lunar
Infrastructure Development Corporation. “
In asking for Committee member support, we pointed out significant
similarities with our own proposal, also strongly endorsed by
Committee members, for an International Lunar Research Park. Both
proposals are for public/private/international collaboration.
There are, of course, those who would prefer a NASA-stand alone
effort, and those who would prefer a purely private enterprise
approach. But a reality check shows that the public/private/
international approach will be much more robust, and stand a much
greater chance of becoming a permanent beachhead on the Moon. It is
also much more likely to lead to the first civilian industrial
settlement.

And that is precisely the Vision of the Moon Society.

The Moon Society urges other pro-space organizations, the public, and
the media to support Buzz Aldrin's proposal.

For more on the Moon Society International Lunar Research Park
proposal, see:

http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/beyond_nasa.html

Thank you for your support

http://www.moonsociety.org

Lunar Elevator can be built today using commercial Zylon fiber.

Lunar Elevator gives cheap access to lunar materials, feedstock for space industries. We can extract oxygen for space tugs delivered to LEO.

Click here for Wikipedia article

We can build large structures in space, from lunar materials e.g. solar power satellites and space habitats. We could also soft-land heavy equipment on to the Moon. Have you read the High Frontier by Gerard O'Neill ?