KICT 한국건설기술연구원

On June 2, KICT hosted the “Moon Village National Assembly Forum for Diversification of Space Development” in Seminar Room 3 of the National Assembly Building.

The forum was hosted by National Assembly Strategy and Finance Committee Chairman Gyung Tae Jo, sponsored by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the Korean Society of Civil Engineers, and the Committee for Civil Engineering in Space, and supervised by the KICT and the International Space Exploration Research Institute.

A special lecture was given by Dr. Bernard H. Foing, Executive Director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) at the European Space Agency (ESA), under the title “Towards ‘Moon Village’: recent missions, technologies, ISRU, and construction.”

This was followed by a presentation given by KICT Extreme Construction Research Group Director Hyu-Soung Shin on trends in diversification of international space development missions. Heated debate on the means to innovate, stimulate, and diversity space development took place in the panel discussion that followed.

The space development experts that participated in the forum then moved to the KICT headquarters in Ilsan with 30 students from the Korean Youth Society for Aerospace, where they participated in a “Moon Village” workshop. After a keynote address from Dr. Foing, small group discussions were held on the topics of space habitat design, scientific research and technology development, and public and stakeholder participation. Various ideas were explored into Korean space and moon exploration and the promotion of Korean space research.

The forum will become a scheduled event, with the second Moon Village National Assembly Forum scheduled for July.