Moscow: Star City 16-17 November, 2006

The Italy has gained a position of excellence in the development of Orbital Systems, subsystems and engineering support activities all related to the manned missions (e.g. ISS). Deep and good collaborations have been established with the other European Countries, including Russia, and with USA.

All those conditions will assure to Italy the opportunity of a possible relevant role in the Space Human Exploration Program, starting from Moon Base that represents one of the most relevant challenge for the entire Humanity.

In order to promote the Italian participation to the Lunar Exploration Program, it was organized the International Conference Moon Base: a Challenge for Humanity, based on two separate workshops ( Venice workshop and Washington workshop).

The Conference has been organized by the working group Moon Base Italia in the frame of the activities of the ngo association Solidarietà & Sviluppo, a think tank formed by executives, professionals and technicians operating in the Hi Tech fields, both in Research or in Industry. It has been organized in two workshops, the first in Venice (Italy) on 26-27 May 2005, the second in Washington, on 11-12 October 2005. The attendans, only by invitations, came from Italy, USA, Russia, Western Europe (ESA) as representative, highly qualified, of the space stakeholders.

The Venice workshop has firstly established:
The agreement about the development and use of a continuously inhabited base on the Moon, as base element of the future international space activities. The common will, both of USA and Italy, to develop a bilateral collaboration in the frame of the Human exploration of the Solar System. The interest of the other institution/countries attending the conference (e.g. Russia, ESA, etc.) to participate to the Moon base Program.

The main achievements in Washington:
The recognition of Italian capability about "make system", when SMEs, large companies and research institutes begin to work together. The evidence about the availability of NASA, companies and public and private institutions of USA to co-operate with Italian counterparts. This bilateral co-operation can constitute the first nucleus of an international project open primary to the other European partners, Russia included, and after to all the others that will participate.

After the Washington Workshop, many things happened. USA are revising their transport strategies; Europe and Russia are re-addressing their Solar System Exploration programmes, while China and Japan have launched their independent projects; even India and the other emergent nations are starting to present themselves as qualified candidate partners for what can be considered as the largest space adventure for the next tens of years.

And now: the Moscow-Star City Workshop!
Now, under the pushing of the USA decisions and the Moon Base Conference workshops, many nations are developing their own plans for the Human Exploration of the Moon, looking for collaborations, with United States at fist step. As a consequence of the Moon Base Conference, two main capabilities have been recognized to the Italian Space System:Italy has the technical and industrial capabilities for an effective management of the Programme workgroups.
The Italian scientific community is of primary level. Moreover The necessity of prepare ourselves to this project is straightforward: to qualify our structures, both research and industries, and to acquire and master the enabling technologies, that are at the basis of the Moon Exploration programme.
We are at the beginning of the project, in what can be called "The Precursor Age", which easily has became the title of this new workshop. With this view, the United States have approved a series of small early missions on the Moon, under the control of the Ames Research Center (ARC). In Europe, and Italy in particular, the need of a network able to link, since now, all the various entities and stakeholders interested in the Moon Base Programme is clearly evident.
Thus, it is necessary to organize all the space community, in order to use the unique opportunities offered by such a enterprise. For this main reason we have decided to organize this third workshop of the Conference, on next November 16th-17th, finding that its natural location is Moscow and the Russia.

The Agenda.
Of course, the main subject of the workshop will be the precursor missions, and how the space community should be infra-structured to respond this request, with three sessions devoted to this argument. One session, also as a tribute to the IMBP for the excellent work done in several years, is dedicated to the Bio-medical aspects of the survival of the human beings on the Moon. In the last session we will discuss about the Transport means and strategies. The detailed Agenda can be found in the Programme page. Every session will include contributions from Russian, American and European side, with only invited speakers, and a final report from the session chairman, acting as discussant, having the task to analyze, resume, and highlight the main outcomes. A Round table, with the participation of representatives of the space agencies, reporting their position on the current scenario, is foreseen. Finally, a social programme, including a gala dinner and a visit to the Star City facilities, completes the activities of the two days workshop.

The workshop is backed directly from the Cultural Association Solidarietà e Sviluppo, and supported by the main national research institutes (INAF, INFN, CNR, ENEA, OGS). The process of request of padronage under the Presidence of the Italian Republic is on progress. Sponsorship contributions from public institutes, or from private companies or groups or SME are welcomed. Please visit the partners web page for details. If requested, the sponsors have the opportunity to have a stand space for promotional purpose during the workshop. Please, don’t hesitate to contact the secretariat of the conference at the following e-mail address:
secretariat@moonbase-italia.org , for any information or request.