OU's Department of Engineering is taking the next step in trying to enter the world of space exploration.

OU is trying to become the first public university to put a spacecraft of any kind on the moon.

David Miller, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering; Donna Shirley, former OU professor; and Dean Hougen, computer science professor are spearheading The Sooner Lunar Schooner Project that will design, build and fly a robotic mission to the moon.

The mission is to launch a spacecraft into a lunar transfer orbit. Before impacting on the moon, a rocket will be fired, killing all of the relative motion between the spacecraft and the lunar surface.

The goal of the project is to improve the science and engineering educations of the hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students working on the project, Miller said.

"I would like to have the OU robots hold out a welcome banner for the NASA robots landing on the moon that would read '2015,'" he said.

Miller said the Lunar Project has been in the works for a long time.

"The SLS idea came from my work with Blastoff! Corporation in 2000," he said. "That company was set up to do a commercial robot mission to the moon."

Things did not go exactly as planned. Blastoff! ran out of money when the stock it was being funded by lost value in the highly publicized Internet stock crash of 2000.

Miller said he then decided to take matters into his own hands. He presented the idea of OU taking over the project to the College of Engineering faculty and deans and received a reasonably enthusiastic response.

Miller said he has received funds for related projects. The work on the lunar and planetary rovers are funded by NASA, MSSS and KIP, he said.

"I have also used some Wilkinson Chair funds to support some related work on landing capsules," he said.

Miller said there is no outside funding directly funding SLS work, but the College of Engineering development people are working on finding it.

Hougen said he hopes that within five years they will be able to put the robot on the moon.

"If everything falls into place, then that is the target date. Funding will be one of the biggest issues that we will have to face," he said.

Along with the funding that Miller is attempting to get, Hougen said the individual professors of the engineering college have gotten together to see what they can do about funding. Once the technology is ready to go into space, they are going to see if alumni would like to help out, he said.

Hougen said he became interested in the project the moment he was told about it.

"When I got here three years ago and was interviewing for my job, Professor Miller told me about the project, and it just sounded like it would be a great opportunity to do something special," he said.

Hougen said the best case scenario would be if the robot would go to former Apollo landing sites, get the materials they need for the mission and do the research right there on the moon.

"Students have been doing most of the work through classes, capstones, graduate research and independent study," Miller said. "We are using the SLS project as a theme for many classes."

Miller said that there are no students working on the project this semester, but students have worked on it in the past.

One of those students is Matt Roman, mechanical engineering graduate student.

Roman said his role in the project was being in charge of the conceptional design of the rover, which includes the suspension, drive train and chassis.

"Originally I started working for Dr. Miller, and as soon as I was enrolled in graduate school and had his first class, I really became interested in the project," he said.

Hougen said he didn't have a timetable of when everyone involved is going to work on the project at the same time.

"A bit of the work gets worked here and there, and it is very sporadic. That is just the nature of things with a project this big," Hougen said.

Roman said he thinks the biggest hurdle is getting enough people behind the project.

"Any student that wants to help out, they can. They don't have to be an engineering student to join up. They can contact Professor Miller if they want to get involved," he said.
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