So it is with space agency spokesperson Yasunori Matogawa, professor Shigebumi Saito, industrialist Yutaro Iida and the dozens of aeronautics scientists assembled on the fourth-floor atrium of the Kyoto Research Park last fall. As the Park's retractable roof gives way to the Kansai firmament, the din of conferring rocket scientists downshifts into a courteous babble of sighs. Dead center of the tableau lies the lush, full harvest moon. Amid the celestial ogling, the thrill seems almost pornographic.

That may be because the aeronautics scientists assembled here are among the world's most avid devotees of lunar exploration. They have dedicated their careers to a dream-a permanently manned moon base, lunar mines, fusion reactors, planet-wide solar cells and observatories. Some even envision a hotel, perhaps by the Sea of Tranquillity, where Neil Armstrong first planted his boot back in 1969. One more thing: They expect us to pay for it all.

Among those gathered in Kyoto for the Second International Lunar Workshop, such discussions provoke neither astonishment nor censure. Yet in the aeronautics world at large, the advocates of manned lunar landings are considered, at best, romantics.

The consensus among the world's top space organizations, including NASA and the Russian Space Agency (RSA), remains in favor of unmanned exploration; probes are cheaper and lives aren't risked. But this does not mean the Matogawas, Saitos and Iidas are loners. The European, Russian and American aeronautics communities all have man-on-the-moon factions. Much of what they have to say on the matter is available on the World Wide Web (see sidebar). More important, the aeronautics experts at the Kyoto moon bash are not about to let majority opinion stifle their dreams.

Modern moon-lust traces back to the failure of the U.S. Apollo program to teach us enough about our nearest cosmic neighbor. The spin-off technologies Teflon, Velcro and digital wristwatches, for example, and a few hundred kilograms of very old rock hauled back from the lunar surface, may seem worthy. But the billions of dollars it took to plant the Stars and Stripes on the moon's crust left plenty more to explore.

The void remains costly and, if for that reason alone, inviting to powerful science bureaucrats.

Matogawa, the Falstaffian launch director at the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS), which, along with the National Space and Development Agency, plans to spend �180 billion next year on outer space; Saito, professor emeritus of Tokyo University; and Yotaro Iida, chairman of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have helped spread the project's power base into the highest echelons of academia and private industry. As a group, Japan's moonies form a potent faction within the space-industrial complex.

Along with about 30 other scientists, industrialists and engineers, these men founded the Lunar and Planetary Society (LPS), an informal pressure group. Together, they formulated the moon faction's manifesto "Building a Manned Lunar Station: the Unmanned Formula."

This inch-thick report urges the construction of a permanent manned station on the moon within 30 years and seeks "international cooperation from any member country or organization willing to share the burden."

As well as being powerful, the moon faction is serious. They want �3 trillion to realize their plans and they are hosting international symposiums like the Kyoto Workshop aimed.

Ironically enough, the manned lunar plan launches with a �146.4 billion unmanned phase. This includes putting a satellite in orbit around the moon, landing two rovers and conducting orbital communications tests. Phase II, covering the years 2006 through 2016, calls for placement on the lunar surface of 14 robots, which will install energy, oxygen and food production plants. This will require a �1.73 trillion budget, exclusive of the rockets needed to thrust the equipment up to its destination.

The �1.03 trillion Phase III brings up the habitation modules and completes the food and energy facilities by 2023. Phase IV would see crews of three rotated into the lunar base in six-month intervals for one-year stays. This second giant leap for mankind will cost �150 billion annually.

The trillion yen plans of the rocket scientists gathered in Kyoto may seem preposterous. But beneath their dreams of lunar grandeur lay real-world industrial planning.

The moon initiative comes as Japan's space industry is nearing a crossroads. Having developed propulsion and satellite systems on par with the world's best, NASDA officials are finding it difficult to argue for the funding needed to catch-up with NASA and its rival, the RSA. NASDA's mainstay rocket, the H-2, can lift today's heavyweight satellites and has never had a failed launch in its 10-year history.

"They (NASDA scientists) came up with the [moon] plan after the advent of the H-2, which was developed for very big missions," says Matogawa.

LPS chairman Tsutomu Iwata, general manager of NASDA's R&D systems engineering department, agrees. "The idea came from several project managers in the mid-'80s. Ever since we saw the H-2 fly, we thought about going to the moon," he says.

ISAS Director General Atsuhiro Nishida seems aware of the plan's audacity. "As a planetary scientist, I can say that the moon is only one of three [exploration] options. It is not the most important. We also need to explore asteroids and other planets. If you look at the Space Activites Committee's long-range plan, there is a vast difference between what they and the LPS are saying. What SAC says expresses the real consensus. In this respect the LPS's interpretation is very loose. But maybe it's the only acceptable method (we have in Japan) to develop a space infrastructure....Going to the moon is a possibility, and I can't question the wishful thinking of some of our scientists."

Even key members of the moon faction agree that there is more to the effort than simple celestial wanderlust.

"NASDA began to search for bigger missions a few years ago, so lunar missions became a candidate," says Matogawa. "Then they asked us at ISAS for help."

A manned lunar re-run, wild-eyed as it may seem, may ensure continued massive investment in satellites, spacecraft and the H-2A, Japan's next-century satellite launcher.

Although yet to fly, the H-2A represents Japan's hope of becoming a major commercial satellite launching nation. World demand is estimated at 800 satellites for the first few decades of the 21st century. The H-2A is aimed at this market.

The presumably reliable H-2A will be expensive. It's projected �140 million per-blastoff price-tag is about double the competition's, but it has already found one believer. Hughes Satellite and Communications Corp. has 10 launches booked. Last year, the H-2A's main rival, the European-built Ariane, blew up seconds after its first launch. Despite this, the Ariane has already found 60 customers.

For the H-2A, the future does not look bright, unless something, for example a huge publicly funded mission, is found.

Last year, SAC approved manned lunar exploration as a long-term goal within the space program's Basic Law. While nothing is guaranteed- space policy is rewritten every 10 years or so-the inclusion of the manned program represents a clear signal that the project is officially on the agenda.

Regardless of whether enthusiasm builds within the space industry, the prospects for funding are not getting any better. After increases averaging 5 percent-plus over inflation from 1990-1995, NASDA budget hikes over the past two years have dwindled to 1.7 percent this year, the lowest in decades. As a result, two satellite programs and the beloved Selene mission, face at least a one-year delay. As Phase I, part one of the lunar mission, Selene represents the genesis of the moon-faction's dream.

"We expected 10-20 percent more than last year. The space science budget costs Japanese people �200 each per year, an amount affordable for any primary school child," complained Matogawa last August, when he thought NASDA was going to get a 3.2 percent budget increase.

Meanwhile, a key LPS strategy to net NASA funding is to show U.S. space officials how much sense it makes to return to the moon, while spending heavily on international projects that show Japan has arrived. Proving Japan's potential in manned operations is supposed to be achieved through NASDA's contribution to the International Space Station (ISS) with the Japanese Experiment Module, JEM.

Yet NASDA literature shows how starry-eyed the effort is, calling ISS "A huge castle of Science in Outer Space," which will be "the most glamorous ever planned by humanity, a giant international project with the participation of Japan, the United States, the European Space Agency, Canada and Russia."

Beyond the warm, fuzzy rhetoric, NASDA has had a torrid time with post-Challenger NASA. The U.S. space agency has ruffled feathers by insisting on double-checking minute details on JEM.

"Tons-rooms full-of paper have had to be sent to NASA over the last five years. It's been a big headache," says Yasushi Horikawa, JEM's deputy director.

JEM, it is worth noting, is the only piece of hardware destined for the International Space Station that is on schedule.

As for Russia's lunar contribution potential, prospects have never been dimmer. U.S. space industry newspapers weekly catalog the RSA's lack of funding jeopardizing the launch of its 1970s-era Soyuz capsule-contribution to ISS. Russia's own aging version of ISS, the MIR, is currently accepting food aid via the U.S. space shuttle.

Yet international cooperation may yet be easier to achieve than accord within the moon faction itself.

Back on Earth, the Kyoto lunar workshop did little to bring the moon any closer. After dozens of lectures, some of the world's finest minds were asked to work together to come up with a preliminary conference resolution.

Tables were drawn together, the chairpersons chosen and the roundtable between 15 or so hard-core moon faction members began.

"I'm sick and tired of listening (sic) to sketches," said Dr. Peter Eckart of Munich University's Department of Astronautics, commenting on the conference's lack of agreement on what a lunar base might look like. Earlier, Eckart, a thirty-something parvenu to the circuit had been ignored. Delegates had taken his lecture "A Parametric Model of a Lunar Base," as a chance to retire to the coffee area.

Such apathy, Willey Sadeth, a professor of space engineering at Colorado State University, warned, is not good for the cause. "Why do we want to go to the moon? We'll never receive one penny for this unless we explain that."

"The whole point," Eckert reminded all who would listen. "is to put men on the moon."

Beyond the broader issues, items such as how to start the project proved befuddling. "The first step," suggested Sadeth, "is to build the first step."

Lunar workshop Chairwoman Alva Perino summed up: "We are not in the position to say what the final goal is."

While the Kyoto workshop did demonstrate the fragility of consensus, it did not put an end to the charm offensive. Having guided the visiting rocket scientists on a tour of Kyoto, including a river cruise with more moon-viewing thrown in, Matogawa shot off to Florida to lobby NASA-not an easy sell, he admits.

"From my personal point of view, Mars is still the main target for NASA," says Matogawa. "There's a chance we may be able to forge the necessary cooperation, but we can't force them."