Message from the Chair

The NASA Advisory Council Workshop on Science Associated with the Lunar Exploration Architecture was held from February 27-March 2, 2007 in Tempe, Arizona . Council member and Workshop Chair Brad Jolliff and his team of Subcommittee members and NASA personnel organized a tremendously successful event that I expect will be the foundation for planning lunar-related science at least until permanent settlement of the Moon becomes a reality. Like the 1965 Falmouth Conference before the Apollo lunar landings, the 2007 Tempe Conference will provide a reservoir of current community thought and perspectives. This vast reservoir will sustain NASA, the Nation, and its commercial and international partners in the integration of exploration science, lunar science, and lunar-based science into the broader programmatic structure that comprises the President's Vision for Space Exploration. As I told the attendees at the opening plenary session:

"Unlike the Falmouth gathering, however, the Tempe Conference can tap over 40 years of insights gained from human and robotic exploration of the Moon, Mars and, indeed, the Solar System. Also, unlike Falmouth , we have more time to prepare before the next human landing on the Moon…and we will need it! In reality, we must include in our plans the transfer of our collective knowledge, experience and wisdom to another generation. Those younger men and women will cultivate the seeds we plant and harvest the crops we envision, adding their own imagination, motivation and stamina along the way. That new generation also includes the Nation's electorate – those who ultimately must support the funding and make the investments of time and treasure that allows this total enterprise to move forward.

"On and even broader front, the Tempe Conference is a milestone – a milestone on the long, torturous road being traveled by the human species. That road of many forks and intersections has stretched out before us for at least 150,000 years. That road, with all its complexities, has led us to where we are today, including the freedom we enjoy in being here. Now a branch of that road, one so far "less traveled by," leads to permanent homes and lives on the Moon and Mars. What a magnificent junction in history to find ourselves! Our band of colleagues, of the 20 th and 21 st Centuries, can do its part to turn that road into a new highway up on which many others will travel."

The Conference was organized around the five Science Subcommittees of the Council's Science Committee, and nearly 200 invited individuals from a wide variety of disciplines came together to share their collective knowledge and ideas. By the final day of the Conference, all of the subcommittees, Astrophysics, Earth Science, Heliophysics, Planetary Science and Planetary Protection, defined priority endeavors for lunar outpost and global science and developed many creative ideas that uniquely involve being on the Moon, or which is enabled by the technology to get there.

The results of the Tempe Conference will provide the Council with the background necessary to advise the Administrator on the scientific aspects of the Agency's plans for a lunar architecture and how the science relates to many of the design and operational components of the lunar architecture. Output of the Conference, all of which will be publicly available, includes presentations from the sessions, white papers, and a synthesis report of the week's discussions and findings. A link to the workshop synthesis report will be posted here in the near future. Officially, all results from the Workshop will be passed up to the Council Science Committee for its review and input, and then to the full NASA Advisory Council where the formal recommendations of the Science Committee will be deliberated, approved and delivered to the NASA Administrator.

Thank you to all who participated in and planned the Tempe Conference. I am hopeful that this will be the first of many discussions within the science community on the integration of science into the return to the Moon. As future iterations of the lunar architecture occur, the Council will insure that further refinement of related scientific priorities takes place.

Harrison Schmitt
Chairman
March 2007