Astronaut foresees a lunar future

NEWPORT BEACH — John Young doesn’t idly dream about living or working on the moon. The six-time space traveler thinks it’s an imminent reality.

Young spoke to about 60 people Saturday morning at the Radisson Newport Beach about not only his journeys to the moon and in Earth’s orbit, but also the technologies that could allow people to live and work on the moon.

His talk was in honor of Earth Day, but came on the heels of Jeffrey Roth’s film “The Wonder of It All” screening at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

In the film, Young and other astronauts share their experiences in space.

“The moon is really important for the future of people on this planet,” Young said as he showed the audience slides of his trip to the moon.

Talk about extreme mixed-use zoning.

Young said that with solar arrays, nuclear technology and terraforming — a hypothetical process of creating an environment on other planets or the moon that would make it livable for humans — power could be provided to Earth and to those who venture to be the first lunar residents.

Earth and the moon could have “reliable, uninterrupted nuclear power at a lunar base,” Young said. “You’d have all you need to live and work on the moon.”

But Young telling people about their lunar future wasn’t cut and dry. Audience members often erupted in laughter at his tales of getting kicked out of meetings, solar rays making his nose glow in the dark, and driving on the surface of the moon.

“It’s like driving on ice,” he said. “You know what saved us? There was nobody coming down the road the other way.”

Even if living or receiving power from the moon isn’t happening tomorrow, the curiosity is there.

A U.S. space tourist landed Saturday after spending two weeks in space at the Russian space station. Hungarian-born Charles Simonyi paid $25 million for preflight training and the flight, the Associated Press reported.

But Orange County residents aren’t necessarily ready to spend that kind of cash yet.

“It’s scary,” La Habra resident Roy Kyle said Saturday after Young rushed off to catch a plane. “It may happen though. I hope it happens in our lifetimes.”

Kyle went Saturday to the event with his fiancee, Angela Bleackley, who quickly chimed in that if money wasn’t a factor or if people were going to live on the moon, she’d be up for the adventure.

After seeming uneasy about the notion of living in a place you’d need special suits for, Kyle gave in once he realized she’d be gung-ho about the trip.

Since she was a little girl in rural Canada, Bleackley has had her eyes toward the stars. She found out about Young’s speaking engagement through an e-mail list she’s on.

“He was hilarious, but he seemed really focused on the goal of living and working on the moon,” she said.

The only downside Young brought up? Once more than one lunar vehicle would be on the moon, there’d be the chance for the first lunar car wreck.