Israel racing to moon

DAVID ROSENBERG THE MEDIA LINE

They aren’t planning to put the first Israeli on the moon, but they do want to plant the country’s flag there and send a robot on a 500-metre stroll past some craters, sending pictures back home. Along the way, they want to inspire the next generation of Israelis to pursue science and technology and show the world Israel’s technological abilities. And they want to do this by employing innovative and untried technology in the space of two years on a budget that NASA would regard as petty cash.

Space IL (spaceil.com), a nonprofit organization formed by three young Israelis, is undertaking its shoestring dream as part of the Google Lunar X competition (googlelunarxprize.org) to successfully launch, fly and land a robotic spacecraft on the lunar surface. The team is competing for a $30 million first-place award, but Space IL is just as concerned about the process as the prize.

“It’s a vision,” said Kfir Damari, one of the three twenty-somethings who founded Space IL last year. “If we show the next generation that we can build spaceships and land them on the moon, they’ll become the next generation of engineers.”

Damari was speaking at a ceremony at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) near Ben-Gurion Airport earlier this month, where Rona Ramon, whose husband, Ilan, died in the crash of the Columbia space shuttle eight years ago, unveiled a mock-up of the Israeli spaceship. It is a six-sided device small enough to be squeezed through the door of the auditorium where it was introduced to the public.

“Space IL is definitely part of Ilan’s spirit and heritage, because he really believed in education and how space can inspire young scientists to continue with opening their horizons and their thoughts,” she told this reporter on the sidelines of the ceremony.

At first glance, Space IL’s quest seems like a long shot. Since Neil Armstrong touched the lunar surface, the only other country beside the United States to reach the moon is the former Soviet Union. Israel is competing against 25 teams from around the world, including contestants with NASA affiliations and multi-country consortiums. But Israel is a space power in its own right: it is one of only 10 countries in the world, and by far the smallest, with proven ability to put a satellite in orbit and is a pioneer in the field of miniature satellites.

About the size (and color) of a washing machine, Space IL’s planned vehicle is miniature by spaceship standards. It weighs 90 kilograms (200 pounds) and measures 80-by-80 centimetres (30 inches), which means it will require less fuel to vault it into space and gently land it on the moon. That is the key to building the spaceship and getting to the moon on a budget of $15 million or less.

However, therein lies a risk, explained Yanki Margalit, Space IL’s chairman and a high-tech entrepreneur. “We’re going to use microtechnology that’s never been employed for a moon landing. We are taking a risk. The spaceship is very small, which is both its beauty and the challenge it poses.”

Space IL has raised about $3.5 million, including a grant from the Israel Space Agency, and is counting for donations in kind from an array of Israeli scientific institutions and high-tech companies, including IAI. The vehicle itself will be assembled in a special room at IAI to protects its delicate components and ensure that it doesn’t inadvertently bring microbes from here to the moon. Margalit added, only somewhat in jest, that anyone prepared to donate $10 million could affix their logo to the spaceship beside the Israeli flag and IAI’s.

Space IL is also stretching its budget by relying on volunteers. Damari, as well as his two founding partners, Yariv Bash and Yonatan Winetraub – all of them engineers with specialization in electronics and computers, communications and satellite technology – have full-time jobs and aim to get to the moon in their spare time.

The volunteers also include a large number of teenagers, most of them engaged in communications and marketing but a select group of 15 comprise a team charged with a key engineering assignment.

“Our goal is to find the site where the spaceship will land,” Amit Levin, a 14-year-old member of the team, explained at the ceremony. He said the group had narrowed the decision down to four or five locations and was now consulting with [adult] astrophysicists to make a final decision.

“I’m studying at Tel Aviv University’s Scientists of the Future program, which was started by President Shimon Peres,” he said. “Because all of us are learning either physics or chemistry, Space IL came to us and gave us the land-sites job…. Most of us are 14 or 15 years old.”

When Peres, who is an avid promoter of Israeli high-tech, was asked why it is important for Israel to go to the moon, he answered: “Where do you want us to go?”

He stressed, “It has a significance of the first order because we have nothing but science. [Israel] is small, we don’t have natural resources, the population is growing. The only way for us to answer the growth of our people is in the scientific and technological domains.”

In fact, a big part of Space IL is education. The $30 million, if it wins the Lunar X prize, will be donated to education with a goal to spur the interest of young people in science.

“Our mission is to land a spaceship on the moon,” said Bash, Space IL’s lead partner. “But our real goal is scientific education in Israel.”

– With reporting by Ariel O’Sullivan

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