Kentucky Helps Push America to the Moon and Beyond

March 3, 2004

On January 14th of this year, President Bush called for an increase in NASA's funding of over $1 billion dollars over 5 years to put a permanent base on the moon and land astronauts on Mars. Today in Frankfort, Governor Fletcher and others outlined how Kentucky will play a part in that campaign with the announcement of a new partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center and the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC).

"This new partnership will create new opportunities for Kentucky's scientists, faculty, entrepreneurs, teachers and students," said
Governor Fletcher. "I have a vision for Kentucky to have a more competitive position in the New Economy, and this initiative will help us in this endeavor."

The Ames Research Center, located in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, is headed by a Kentuckian, Scott Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard served as the first NASA Mars Program Director, was the Mission Manger for the Lunar Prospector Discovery Mission, the originator of the highly successful Mars Pathfinder Mission and recently served as the sole NASA representative on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Ames is one of NASA’s most innovative centers.

NASA's goal for returning to the moon and mars will include the pursuit of work in living systems, information systems, nanotechnology and celestial mining. As part of this effort KSTC will provide access for Kentucky faculty, companies and students by opening an office at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. According to Kris Kimel, President of KSTC, "The Kentucky office will be funded and managed by KSTC, and will not only facilitate our efforts with NASA but also greatly expand our access to and work with a wealth of new talent, venture capital firms, innovative companies and world-class universities."

In addition to this latest NASA announcement, Kentucky is partnering with NASA on a wide variety of projects at the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, the Remote Sensing Center of Murray State University, The NASA Space Grant Consortium and NASA EPSCoR efforts at Western Kentucky University and the new Space Science Center at Morehead State University. The Governor's Office for Technology is the principal investigator with the NASA's Earth Science Enterprise Office on two projects: the Kentucky Landscape Snapshot and Kentucky Landscape Census. These projects will establish a baseline landcover of Kentucky for measuring landscape change with easy-to-use on-line Internet tools. Users will be able to choose a time period and see how the landscape has changed over time.

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