Integrating the Future With the Present 2004-01-2479

The prudent use of analog facilities for future missions to other planetary bodies has been validated in many locations. Site specific analog projects such as the Haughton-Mars Project and Devon Island have proven beneficial by conducting terrestrial science type missions and learning from them. An integrated facility oriented to ground testing allows the opportunity to bring many other activities associated with a future exploration mission together and add value to the analog experience. The focus of such a facility as the Advanced Integration Matrix (AIM) at Johnson Space Center includes operations and various technical disciplines needed to conduct the mission. These facilities bring together emerging and developing technologies and identify the issues and risks when they are interfaced with each other.

The purpose of this paper is to identify areas of near term benefit of ground test facilities focused on future missions in space. One such benefit is to utilize the knowledge gained from these facilities toward solving more immediate, terrestrial problems, specifically looking at the application of what is learned in AIM to sustainable building architecture in developing countries. Just as the analog projects promote immediate Earth-based science, many of the technologies integrated and activities of AIM (e.g. operations, crew training, communications, logistics, management, and materials development) could prove to have direct application in the Earth-based built environment long before they are utilized to take us to the Moon or Mars.