Moon Society Participation in
India Moon Mission Contest
Leads to Surprising Rewards

Report by Peter Kokh - November 28, 2004, updated April 25, 2005

In December 2003, a year ago, we reported that the Moon Society, through the Chapters Coordinator's office, would cosponsor a Moon Mission Contest for students being put together by the Planetary Society of Youth (TPSY) in India. We helped design the contest entry guidelines, committing to a prize of a free one year membership for the first place winner. See report.

On October 21, 2004 we were notified by TPSY that two first place winning entries were selected. We expect to publish their entries. One of the winners, Theo Allan Fernandes, is from Mumbai, as Bombay is now called; the other, Rohan Sahani, is from Chennai, as Madras is now called. Both winners have been so motivated by the process and their selection as winners that this contest has made a major difference in their career prospects.

Both students are working together to create the new Moon Society India chapter with Fernandes as the contact person and webmaster and Sahani as acting president.

Sahani has since became the first student to have a paper selected for the International Lunar Conference in Udaipur, India in November, and is now applying for admission to Stanford and other highly ranked research institutions in the US, and has also applied for a crew assignment to the Moon Society's first Lunar Outpost Simulation exercises at the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, with a research project ready to conduct on location. Dates for this exercise have not yet been set. Both are spreading the name of the Moon Society throughout India's space community.

So what was originally just an act of helpful collaboration now has had some very exciting results. Little seeds can become great trees. We have to plant more seeds!

Rohan Sahani's Paper: Earth's Moon - Our 2nd Home

Theo Allan Fernandes' Paper: Can a Permanent and Economical Human Base be Built on the Moon?