MAUNA LANI — Space exploration isn’t in the future – it’s now, said Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, was a guest at the inaugural International MoonBase Summit at Mauna Lani Bay Hotel. The mission of the five-day summit was to unite space agencies, space companies and humankind to build sustainable settlements on the moon, Mars and beyond.
Video game entrepreneur Henk Rogers, famous for his work on “Tetris,” was the host and sponsor of the summit. During a lunch break Tuesday, he said, humankind is sort of a sitting duck. If an asteroid hit earth, it could be destroyed.
“We want to have a backup of earth life,” Rogers said. “We have to become a multi-planetary species and bring other species with us.”
Since Sunday, the summit brought experts, entrepreneurs and high school students together to talk about what it would take to make the MoonBase a reality.
“It was a 100 years ago when flying in an airplane transcontinental was believed impossible,” Rogers said. “One hundred years from now it will be like taking a bus or plane to the moon. It will happen real fast.”
On Tuesday, a group of high school students sat together at one of the circular tables in a ballroom at the resort. The teens were excited and inspired about the prospect of going to the moon.
Hayden Hawkins, 15, is student at the charter school University of Laboratory School on Oahu. He said establishing a MoonBase is precisely what the world needs, besides the fact it’s cool.
Brianna Ryan, 15, student at Hawaii Preparatory Academy, said she came to the summit because she is in love with astronomy.
“It’s totally doable and necessary if we want humanity to mean anything at the end of the day and not just be a blimp in both space and time,” Ryan said.
Oliver Grayson, 17, also an HPA student, said he could honestly see himself working on the MoonBase project when he graduated high school.
“It’s really exciting because it’s happening right now,” Grayson said.
Grayson plans to study engineering and computer science.
“I like robotics and building things for space sounds like a dream job,” he said.
Part of making the MoonBase a reality is practicing and building a test site in conditions similar to the moon. That site would be on the Big Island.
Rogers envisions the first phase would be to build what the MoonBase could look like out of traditional materials at a practice site.
“We’ve gotten some ways on design,” Rogers said. “It will probably have to be underground to protect us from radiation.”
“On the moon we’d have to live sustainably and in a small space,” Rogers said. “All materials on the MoonBase would have to be reused. We don’t want any landfills on the moon.”
Phase two would be to build the base using materials that would be used on the moon. Rogers said Hawaii is a perfect place to practice this since the moon and Hawaii’s volcanic rock is almost the same.
He thinks construction for the MoonBase could start in four years.
John Hamilton, professor at University of Hawaii at Hilo, teaches in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He organized bringing students to the summit, which ends Thursday.
“Space is now evolving from government space agencies to private and commercial space exploration,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton said Hawaii is the best place to test things when testing going to the moon or Mars. The moon tephra is made out of the same volcanic basalt on the Big Island.
“Hawaii would be a good place to have a prototype,” Hamilton said. “You test something that has functional elements you’re looking for.”