
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 15, 1994                   TAG: 9402150143
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

COMMERCIALISM TAKES A GIANT LUNAR LEAP

It's 1997, and you're with the kids at a theme park. You plunk down cash and watch on a screen as you steer a strange-looking dune buggy - on the moon. Really. Maybe.

The vehicle you drive would be on Tranquillity Base, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left the first footprints on the moon 25 years ago. But this time it wouldn't be one small step for a man, but a giant leap for commercialism.

LunaCorp, a maker of space-oriented CD-ROMs, announced plans Monday to raise $110 million to put the little rover on the moon. That amount would include $50 million in launch costs on a Russian rocket.

"Our goal is to provide the world's first interactive space exploration event by giving the public the opportunity to drive the rover on the moon via telepresence," said David Gump, president of the Arlington, Va., company.

LunaCorp hopes the money will come from theme park operators, television networks, corporate sponsors and advertising agencies. About 25 percent of the rover's work will be devoted to science, Gump said, and the company is hoping for a little financial support from NASA.

LunaCorp has enlisted William Whittaker of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, a renowned inventor of robotic vehicles, to design its lunar rover. He told a news conference that the moon offers significant advantages for the project: You can get there quickly, an abundance of solar power is available, and communication with Earth is good.

Whittaker said the technology for a rover has been developed by NASA and is there for the taking.

Arrangements for carrying the robot to the moon would be made by International Space Enterprises of San Diego, which would use a Russian Phobos rocket. Each primary customer would pay $6 million to $18 million, Gump said.

With all that sponsorship, he envisions a vehicle that has commercial logos all over it "like an Indianapolis race car" but ruled out a miles-long advertising message that could be read from Earth.

For a fee, LunaCorp would grant video broadcast rights to television, produce science adventure programs for children and sell commercial tie-ins from camcorders to computers.

The vision doesn't stop with the moon. On Earth, an automotive company could have a reproduction of the rover visit dealerships, some company could sponsor a computer mailbox on the moon, and a relay could be set up so long-distance telephone customers could have their calls routed via another planet.

And Gump sees the grandest stunt of all: a contest to find the first person to steer the vehicle on the moon. "I can just see it," he said. "Billy Smith from Peoria at the controls."

by CNB