The Hindu : New Delhi News : Designing a dream-colony for moon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 20, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Designing a dream-colony for moon

By Mandira Nayar

NEW DELHI, DEC. 19. Shah Rukh Khan might have given up his dreams of space at the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and returned to his "Swades" in "reel", but a bunch of youngsters are hoping to be make the "return journey''.

Their task is certainly more complicated than Shah Rukh's feeling of nationalism and deals with complex issues of astro-physics to design a moon settlement for about 5,000 people. And giving the young out-of-the-world dreamers in Asia a reality check is the Space Settlement Design Competition, which is going beyond just an all American experience for the first time.

"This is the first time that we are holding the competition outside America. We asked the team finalist from Patiala this year if the competition lived up to their expectation. They told us that it was much more and asked us if a competition could be conducted in Asia. We had always wanted to grow the competition and I think India chose us,'' said Senior Project Engineer, Space Shuttle Cargo Integration, Boeing, Anita Gale.

Bringing five Indian schools and one each from Pakistan and Malaysia together to build a colony in space, the competition has been sponsored by The Boeing Company, the Aeronautical Society of India, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Orange County (California) Section. The winner of the regional competition will get to travel to the "mecca'' of space enthusiasts -- Kennedy Space Center in Florida later next year to be part of the finals. A giant leap for students who have always wanted to go beyond the orbit, it will give them a taste of the industry experience that deals with space, but is governed by the more `earthly' forces like economics.

While the Space Settlement Design Competition is about colonies far away from the third planet, it is not only about scientific theory, believe Dick Edward, Principal Engineer, Boeing. "The challenge is to design a city with a few complications like it being set in space," he says in a matter of fact manner.

Having spent their lives handling issues of outer-space, Edward and Gale believe that a colony on the moon might be still be light years away.

"Space settlements need an economic or financial trigger and I don't see that in place at the moment. Tourism in space might be an economic trigger that has developed independently from us by entrepreneurs. But we have to wait for the reaction after the first accident and there will be one, to realise how serious they really are. There is no sign of space being used as a political agenda and the other trigger could be survival. But I will be very happy if it happens in 2050 on my 100th birthday,'' said Gale laughing.

A competition started by "nerds'' about 20 years ago, the Space Settlement Design Competition has become more than just a contest about building a viable settlement in space that might never move beyond a workable concept on paper, but in a way does much more. Inviting kids to imagine the unexplored and opening up their minds to limitless possibilities, the Space Settlement Design Competition is not about the achievements of technology, but the greater power of inspiration. "We have had parents calling us up and saying that my child is a changed person after the weekend in NASA. Kids who didn't want to go to college, have decided to get serious after this experience,'' she said.

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