They Beam at Idea of Moon Home : Frontiers: An organization of engineers, scientists and technicians is serious about colonizing space. Members see the lunar landscape as a good place to start.

Space may be the final frontier, but for the members of OASIS, it’s the next best place to live.

The group of aerospace engineers, scientists and technicians not only want to boldly go where few people have gone before, they fully hope to move there.

The Redondo Beach-based organization, a chapter of the National Space Society, has its eyes set specifically on the moon. Members see it as a vast, untapped resource waiting to be claimed, waiting to be homesteaded and waiting to be developed.

“The bottom line is we want to get people into space,” said Terry Savage, the group’s founder who supervises semiconductor chip fabrication.

“We’re talking about people living there, raising families there, working there--you name it. The real benefit of colonizing space is intangible. It creates a new plateau, a new place to get away from it all.”

This is no ragtag band of science-fiction freaks and back-porch astronomers. Members of the group design and build satellites that probe the solar system and work on computer programs that provide researchers with information on the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

But for them, working in aerospace is not the same as working in space. And to that end, they have their sights set firmly on the future.

“In this group, people generally speak the same language,” said Pat Montoure, who designs satellites for Hughes Aircraft and is a member of the OASIS Board of Directors. “When someone starts talking about launch costs around here, the other people in the room aren’t going to fall asleep. These are people who have had their heads buried in computers and technical manuals for a couple of years. Others might find them a little weird, but here, they think the same way.”

Started by Savage in 1978 as a local offshoot of the national space organization, OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement) has been active in urging Congress to set aside more funds for space exploration.

The group, which has about 300 members, meets regularly throughout California with other space activists to discuss, and occasionally argue over, the best and fastest ways to place men, women and children on the moon. Their monthly meetings feature guest speakers and experts talking about new technology, as well as round-table discussions about man’s future on the moon.

“I want to create more places to visit, to live and to spread life farther into the solar system,” said Randy Gigante, executive vice president of OASIS and a designer of commercial satellites for Hughes Aircraft.

“We need more resources on Earth and they’re not all going to come from our own planet,” Gigante said. “It’s a long-term solution, but it’s the only solution.”

Savage scoffs at the idea that moving people to the moon is lunacy. Indeed, he has some very specific ideas for how our nearest space neighbor should be settled.

First, space scientists need to survey the moon’s landscape and its potential resources. After that, robotic and human moon missions should be conducted. If all systems are go, a power plant facility should be constructed to serve a future human colony, he said.

The only real drawback, at least initially, is that the first settlements would have to be built underground because the moon’s surface is not hospitable to everyday life.

“Ultimately, I envision a crater-domed settlement, with air inside, in an Earth-like setting with trees and plants and all,” he said, adding that he would like to see a 500-person community near the moon’s north pole by the year 2010.

But how it would work politically is another matter. Although the United States signed an outer space treaty 24 years ago which prohibits any country from claiming portions of the moon for its own, Savage believes the pact has outlived its usefulness.

Indeed, he believes the United States should claim the northern half of the moon, if for no other reason than we already have sent men there and planted flags on the lunar surface.

“Unless some little green men have removed them, that is historically how new colonies have been formed,” he said. “And even if we get people from different countries arguing about who gets which part of the moon, it still helps us. Because when people start arguing over it, it shows that settling the moon is worth fighting over.

“And besides,” he adds, “we’d be giving (the rest of the world) the southern half.”

From there the rest is relatively easy. The U.S. should then open the moon up for homesteading and pave the way for the first starry-eyed pioneers. Anyone who can live on the moon for six months, Savage says, should be entitled to 100 square miles of land. They would be able to sell off smaller chunks “for whatever the market would be.”

The rest would be up to the settlers, he said. Business-minded professionals would be most welcome, especially since he believes any farsighted company should be made tax exempt and all trade regulations suspended for at least 50 years.

While Savage takes a very pragmatic approach, others in the group are less detail-oriented. Montoure, 43, said she is one of the many members simply curious about what life would be like in space.

“Personally I’m too old and don’t think I’ll ever make it, but I’d like to see others do it,” she said. “But who knows, maybe I can retire on the moon. I mean, my weight would go down. There’s all sorts of benefits.”