SPONSORED BY —
Lunar and Planetary Institute
National Aeronautics and
   Space Administration
NASA Lunar Exploration
   Analysis Group

CONVENERS —
Clive Neal,
   University of Notre Dame
Steve Mackwell,
   Lunar and Planetary Institute

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE —
Clive Neal,
   University of Notre Dame
Charles Shearer,
   University of New Mexico
Jeff Taylor,
   University of Hawaii
Michael Wargo,
   NASA Headquarters
Tom Morgan,
   NASA Headquarters
Bradley Carpenter,
   NASA Headquarters
Steve Mackwell,
   Lunar and Planetary Institute
Kurt Sacksteder ,
   NASA Glenn Research Center
Paul Eckert,
   The Boeing Company
Greg Schmidt,
   NASA Ames Research Center

MEETING LOCATION AND DATE

The LEAG Workshop on Sustaining Lunar Exploration will be held November 16–19, 2009, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, located in the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) building, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, Texas.

KEY POINTS:
When:  November 16–19, 2009
Where:  Houston, Texas

As NASA prepares to return to the Moon, learning from history is important for ensuring that a sustainable and long-term lunar return is possible.  The Apollo program was not sustainable. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together academic, governmental, and private sector interests to focus on the sustainability theme of the LEAG-coordinated Lunar Exploration Roadmap.  The meeting will incorporate the results from the latest missions (especially the LRO/LCROSS mission) to ensure that the framework for a sustainable presence is established early in this next era of lunar exploration.

The three-and-one-half day workshop will consist of invited oral presentations and contributed poster presentations centered on questions relevant to the workshop theme of sustaining lunar exploration.  All presentations and discussions will be conducted in plenary sessions.

On Monday through Thursday (November 16–19) the workshop will be divided into morning (8:30 a.m.– noon) and afternoon (1:30–5:00 p.m.) sessions focusing on the following questions and issues:

• Why are we going back to the Moon?
• How will the results of current and future missions facilitate a sustainable lunar architecture?
• Are Space Commercialization and International Cooperation mutually exclusive?
• How will the results from LRO-LCROSS facilitate a sustainable lunar architecture?
• How can ISRU technology be matured to be a credible part of the lunar architecture and also offer on-ramps for commercial partners?
• How can the Apollo lunar samples be used to facilitate NASA’s return to the Moon while preserving the collection for scientific investigation?

Each session will be composed of invited talks with time for audience discussion.  All speakers will be asked to address the question pertinent to their session in their presentation and to provide an executive summary of their presentation.

The morning session of the first day of the meeting, Monday, November 16, will focus on "NASA Plans for Return to the Moon:  Community Update."  The final morning session, Thursday, November 19, will be devoted to discussion and session summaries, which will shape the meeting product. 

The session summaries, along with the abstracts and list of organizers and participants, will be included in a final report to be published on the LEAG website.

Contributed abstracts are highly encouraged and should be centered on the session topics and key questions. The contributed abstracts will form poster sessions scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Details concerning the submission of abstracts will be provided in the second announcement.

The results of the meeting, especially the discussions, will identify exploration enablers (technology, ideas, partnerships, etc.) that will be incorporated into the Lunar Exploration Roadmap and presented in a white paper to NASA and the broader community.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) was created to foster lunar and planetary science and the exploration of the solar system. The Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) is a community-based interdisciplinary forum that analyzes scientific, engineering, technology, and operational issues associated with lunar exploration to support the vision for space exploration; it reports its findings and analyses to the NASA advisory council.

For further information regarding the format and scientific objectives of the meeting, contact

CLIVE NEAL
University of Notre Dame
Phone:  574-631-8328
E-mail:  [email protected]

STEVE MACKWELL
Lunar and Planetary Institute
Phone:  281-486-2180
E-mail:  [email protected]

For further information regarding meeting logistics and announcements, please contact

MARY CLOUD
Lunar and Planetary Institute
phone:  281-486-2143
e-mail:  [email protected]