2008 PISCES Lunar Outpost Design Student Competition Announced

As I mentioned a few days ago, the rollout of the 2008 PISCES Lunar Outpost Design Student Competition was expected about now, and here it is. Here are the areas they're looking for:

• overall habitat design (architecture). Teams considering submissions should review last year’s reports, which can be found on the PISCES web site http://pisces.hilo.hawaii.edu/. (up to two awards will be given)
• lunar resource utilization. This could include work in finding, extracting and utilizing lunar materials for support of a lunar outpost or for commercial purposes. This is of particular interest to NASA, who is supporting up to three awards in this area. NASA has requested that design studies in this area focus on the problems/solutions for extracting water from deposits in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles.
• supporting subsystems (life support systems, communications, robotics, energy conversion and power, surface transportation, etc.) that may be simulated in the PISCES environment. (up to two awards)
• issues of operations in space and on planetary surfaces, such as the conduct of field geology, remote exploration from a planetary base, or problems of human performance and health.(up to two awards)
• Business students are invited to participate by submitting business plans detailing concepts for developing commercial goods or services aligned with a lunar outpost, or with the PISCES simulation facility (up to two awards)