PISCES Vision and Mission Statements
Vision
The vision of PISCES is a comprehensive, international research and education center devoted to research and education that will develop technologies needed to sustain human life on the Moon and beyond.
Mission
The mission of PISCES is to support the exploration and settlement of space through research and education. The PISCES mission supports the space exploration strategies of a number of spacefaring nations. These strategies differ in a fundamental way from the one that guided the Apollo program; this time we’re going to stay. That means we will have to learn to “live off the land” because it will be prohibitive if not impossible to take everything we’ll need with us as we journey back to the Moon and on to Mars. We will have to develop new technologies to produce oxygen, food and water to support life; rocket propellants to continue the journey; energy for heat and power, materials for construction and manufacturing and many other items we use routinely here on Earth. Much of the basic research can be done in the laboratory, but before we can rely on these technologies in space, they will have to be tested and proven out in realistic settings. PISCES will provide both the laboratory and the field environments needed to pursue this mission.
When it is fully developed, PISCES will be the only international, integrated research center in the world devoted to the development of new technologies to enable permanent human presence on an extraterrestrial body. It will consist of research laboratories and field testing sites on the Big Island of Hawai’i and will involve faculty and students from its host institution, the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, and also from the Manoa campus, the Tokyo Institute of Technology and participating universities around the world.
The State of Hawai’i and its citizens, and especially those on the Big Island, will benefit greatly from PISCES through its location at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo (UHH). A center will promote economic development on the Big Island and throughout the State directly by attracting new businesses and indirectly by enhancing educational opportunities in science, math and engineering, thereby bolstering the technical workforce needed to attract additional high-tech industry to the State.
Education and public outreach will be a major thrust of PISCES, with programs for the K-12 and university communities, as well as the general public. With a staff of highly trained scientists and engineers, PISCES will include an active research program in planetary surface technology, with an emphasis on learning to “live off the land” on an extraterrestrial body. Exciting prospects for future planetary exploration will attract both students and the general public, including tourists visiting Hawai’i, who will observe experiments in progress and learn about our future in space through interactions with PISCES staff and students.
PISCES will become an important facility for use by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and by other space agencies for their space exploration research, demonstration and training programs. It will also become an important technological proving ground for private companies wishing to participate in the coming commercial opportunities in on the Moon and Mars. It will be a major asset for institutions of higher education in the US and Japan, but especially in Hawai’i, as a center where research and education programs related to space exploration can be conducted with a combination of public and private funding.