McDonnell, Japanese Firm Team on Space Technology

In an unusual international cooperative effort in space exploration, McDonnell Douglas Corp. is teaming up with a Japanese engineering company to develop technologies that someday could be used to establish permanent colonies on the moon or to explore Mars.

Huntington Beach-based McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co., a major contractor on the controversial space station program, said Thursday that it had reached agreement with Shimizu Corp., Japan’s largest general contracting firm.

In 1989, President Bush announced a program for establishing a permanently manned base on the moon during the first decade of the next century as part of a long-term goal of sending a manned mission to Mars.

The lunar project would be critical to any aerospace company hoping to play a role in what eventually could become the next major international space project after the $30-billion space station.

Robert Sirko, project manager for McDonnell Douglas, said a team of engineers from both companies will work on the project in Huntington Beach. He declined to specify how much each company will invest in the project.

The firms will develop five technologies that are deemed necessary to build a lunar base that could sustain human life. Sirko said the companies will explore the use of solar energy to melt the lunar soil into useful resources, such as oxygen or brick-like building materials.

The team will also study life-support systems, construction techniques that could shield astronauts from radiation, robotic equipment for use in near-zero gravity and the recycling of waste products and other resources.