The First Roads in Space at the 2024 International Space Development Conference

THE FIRST ROADS IN SPACE
INTRODUCING THE ESKEY SYSTEM, A PLANETARY ADDRESS FRAMEWORK
MEGAN ESKEY, FOUNDER AND CEO
RELOQUENCE
Copyright Reloquence 2024 | All Rights Reserved
International Space Development Conference
Interplanetary Infrastructure Session
May 23, 2024

TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Syntax
• Nomenclature
• Software
• Influences
• Implications
• Intellectual Property
• Licensing
• Outreach
• Partnerships
• Space Roadbotics
• Contact Us

SYNTAX FOR THE ESKEY SYSTEM
Quadrangles define regions on planetary
bodies, but only a small subset have been
named. The name is essential for my
framework in that it defines the equivalent
of a “city” or a “state.” The numerical
astronautical charts are the equivalent of a
“zip code.” A planetary address is a
numerical identifier + a named planetary
road + a named quadrangle + a numerical
astronautical chart + the planetary body.
Quadrangles of the Moon

INTERNATIONAL
ASTRONOMICAL UNION (IAU)
NOMENCLATURE GUIDELINES
Planetary road nomenclature guidelines
have not yet been defined, but I have
stayed close to the IAU’s intent in naming
24 roads on the Moon and 8 on Mars.
Ideally, after the Eskey System is accepted
as a global standard for planetary
addresses, this process would become an
international one, with roads named and
charted by different countries. Until then,
all of the planetary roads are American.

32 INAUGURAL U.S. PLANETARY ROADS
LUNAR ROADS – NEAR SIDE
Wingo Epps Circle
Heller Eskey Highway
Neil Armstrong Bridge
Rainy Ridge Road
Park Drive
Point View Road
Gottlieb Road
Princess Leia Parkway
(circumnavigates N/S)
Luke Skywalker Highway
(circumnavigates E/W)
LUNAR ROADS – FAR SIDE
Elon Avenue
Robert Henry Lawrence
Jr Way
Harrison Schmitt Road
Moon Expressway
Darth Vader Road
OpenStack Lane
MARTIAN ROADS
Ray Bradbury Road
Mark Watney Highway
Tharsis Cave Loop
Isaac Asimov Road
House of Atreides
Boulevard
Lady Jessica Drive
Via Arrakis
X Æ A-Xii Court
LUNAR ROADS – NEAR SIDE
Shackleton Switchback
Hadley-Apennine
Avenue
Aristarchus Plateau Place
Aristarchus Crater Byway
Oceanus Procellarum
Bridge
Marius Hills Drive
Reiner Gamma Road
Road Runner Road
Wile E. Coyote Circle

INTERNATIONAL OVERSIGHT
1. Adopt the Eskey System as a global standard for planetary
addresses
2. Define nomenclature guidelines for lunar and Martian roads
3. Coordinate provisional names from each participating country
4. Identify landing sites and destinations for individual countries
5. Coordinate lunar and Martian roadbots for participating
countries as a precursor to naming their roads
6. Define “safety zones” by connecting roads within but not
between different countries
7. Global adoption of the U.S. Commercial Space Launch
Competitiveness Act (SPACE Act) of 2015

MAPPING SOFTWARE AND DATA FORMATS
QGIS is open source mapping software. We use public data sets and digital
elevation models of the Moon and Mars provided online by NASA and USGS.
QGIS uses the OGR library to read and write vector data formats, including
ESRI shapefiles, MapInfo and MicroStation file formats, AutoCAD DXF, PostGIS,
SpatiaLite, DB2, Oracle Spatial and MSSQL Spatial databases, and many more.
GRASS vector and PostgreSQL support is supplied by native QGIS data provider
plugins. Vector data can also be loaded in read mode from zip and gzip
archives into QGIS.

INFLUENCES
The inspiration for my system of roads
was the 2012 research released by Dennis
Wingo and Austin D. Epps, of Skycorp,
Inc. in Santa Clara, California. Wingo and
Epps charted the low, medium and high
slope routes from the rim of Whipple
crater to the floor of Peary crater, using
terrain slope maps. Although they did not
use switchbacks on the medium (greater
than 15 degree) slopes, my system would
require that. The premise is that lunar
rovers are more likely to reach their
destinations intact if they avoid high slope
routes.

WINGO EPPS CIRCLE
Imagine astronauts touching down
on the edge of Whipple Crater,
perched on the peaks of eternal
light. To quench their thirst for
knowledge and hydration, they'll
embark on a journey into the
perpetual darkness of the floor of
Peary Crater, where precious water
ice is believed to lie, buried
beneath as much as 18 inches (40
centimeters) of dry regolith.

HELLER ESKEY HIGHWAY
Starting at the peaks of eternal light on the
rim of Whipple crater, the road winds
through the north polar region to the edge
of the Ocean of Storms. Although a 1600-
mile route, the destination makes it a
worthwhile endeavor. Helium-3, thought to
be found in the lunar regolith at Oceanus
Procellarum, has the potential to power the
world well beyond the depletion of our oil
reserves without leaving behind radioactive
waste and to aid in medical applications. In
the realm of space research, fusion-powered
rockets are seen as the only viable model for
manned deep space exploration.

NEIL ARMSTRONG BRIDGE
The Neil Armstrong Bridge serves a
vital purpose - to honor the first
human footprints on the Moon's
surface. In addition, in the Sea of
Tranquility, where Armstrong crater
is found, titanium deposits beckon
future space entrepreneurs with the
promise of reducing dependency on
Earth’s resources.

THE FIRST ROADS IN SPACE
In our pursuit of design excellence, we
chose to display the lunar surface in a way
that transcends the typical grayscale
representation. We selected a more
colorful depiction that not only captures
the vibrancy of human presence on the
Moon but also symbolizes the potential
for exploration and resource utilization.
The iridescent blues, greens, and yellows
of the map's color palette evoke a sense
of vitality, suggesting not only the play of
light in the polar regions but also the
refractive lunar maria where future space
mining activities may flourish. Between
the flyouts and the globe, the sky is pale
gray, suggesting incident radiation, or the
albedo effect. The repeated theme of
illumination, with stars twinkling in the
background and brighter areas on the
gray globe, reinforces the significance of
light for enabling life beyond Earth.

TIMELINE OF SPACE EXPLORATION INCLUDES NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS, FIRST
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND MILESTONES IN HUMANITY'S EXPLORATION OF OUTER SPACE.
In addition to defining the first planetary address framework and naming the first 32 roads in space, I
am also the first to describe a field of study called "space roadbotics." The current state of the space
road discussion focuses on leveling and paving the surfaces using lasers, microwaves or 3D printers,
but I am diverging from that approach and recommending a fleet of autonomous roadbots that are
optimized for speed. I am suggesting that a network of rover tracks is the superior choice. There is no
wind or atmosphere on the Moon, so rover tracks can last forever.

APOLLO 15
THREE ROVER TRAVERSES
From the EVA 2 transcripts by Eric M.
Jones:
Dave Scott: One of the methods we
seriously considered on getting back to
the LM was following the tracks back
because, if you're over the horizon and
your Nav system doesn't work, it's very
hard to tell where to go - other than the
Sun compass that we had. We used to
joke about the old Hansel and Gretel trick.
Eric Jones: But, once you were down
there, did you also have the feeling that
there were sufficient horizon features?
Dave Scott: Yeah, there are pretty good
horizon features; but you can't beat the
comfort of the tracks. And, if you're
offset, horizon features don't necessarily
work.

DUAL MODE LUNAR TERRAIN VEHICLE (LTV) AND
LUNAR ROVING VEHICLE (LRV)

LUNAR ROADBOT PROTOTYPE
As part of the RAPID project led
by GMV for the European Space
Agency (ESA), GMV is currently
designing and developing a
cutting-edge robotic platform, an
autonomous rover capable of
safely traversing lunar areas at an
average speed of 1.1 m/s, a
speed never before achieved on
the surface of a distant planet by
an autonomous robot, using a
guidance, navigation, and control
(GNC) system based on visual
navigation, i.e. on images
generated or acquired by
cameras installed on the rover.

MARTIAN TERRAIN – DUST DEVIL TRACKS AND
RECURRENT SLOPE LINEAE (RSL)

THARSIS CAVE LOOP
Caves in the Tharsis region of Mars. It's
important to note that these are only cave
candidates, since the lateral extents have
been identified by orbiting spacecraft. Some
may be shallow openings rather than caves,
but until a surface exploration mission is
launched, there is no way to validate those
with deeper caverns. A system of roads
connecting the caves is perhaps a top
priority, since they could provide shelter for
astronauts in lieu of portable habitats. A
road that circles the 1000+ caves and
connects them into a neighborhood of
potential dwellings might be named Tharsis
Cave Loop.

MARK WATNEY HIGHWAY
The International Cartographic Association
(ICA) Commission on Planetary Cartography
has charted a map of the area covered by
Andy Weir’s 2011 novel, The Martian. The
double yellow line is fictional astronaut Mark
Watney’s traverse on the real Martian terrain
in Western Arabia Terra. His route crosses
into multiple quadrangles including Oxia
Palus, Arabia, Margaritifer Sinus and Sabaeus
Sinus. Watney, an astronaut from Ares 3 who
is stranded on Mars, must travel from
Acidalia Planitia to Schiaparelli, a journey of
3,200 kilometres (2,000 miles). Ares 4 will
land in four years, so Watney begins
modifying one of the rovers for the journey,
adding solar cells and an additional battery.

RAY BRADBURY ROAD
Route driven by NASA's Curiosity
Mars rover, from the location
where it landed in August 2012 to
its path to additional geological
layers of lower Mount Sharp in the
Aeolis quadrangle. The low slope
version of this route will eventually
become Ray Bradbury Road.

MORSE CODE
Names of roads could be
carved in the rovers’ tire
treads. In this example, JPL (Jet
Propulsion Lab) is spelled out
in Morse code on the tires of
the Mars Curiosity Rover.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
The Eskey System: A Planetary Address
Framework based on Quadrangles and
Low Slope Routes was copyrighted with
the US Copyright Office on Oct 10, 2021.
The 32 inaugural roads, their provisional
names and the maps are copyright
protected by Reloquence.
Any future maps which include the 32
inaugural planetary roads can license the
right to use “The First Roads in Space”
and related media from Reloquence.

LICENSING THE MAPS
• Digital maps in various formats
• Print copies to distribute as
promotional giveaways
• Maps commissioned by the
private or public sectors
• Digital games, educational
software, training simulations,
immersive environments, lunar
construction, space mining, space
tourism, and even smart
telescopes

ART EXHIBITS AND SHOWS
Brookgreen Gardens Celebrating
Talent Exhibit
Murrells Inlet, SC
March 2 – 21, 2024
Distributed 500 first edition prints
Seacoast Artists Guild Art Show
and Sale
Myrtle Beach, SC
April 5 – 19, 2024
William H. Miller Studios and
Fine Art
Power of the Byte – Digital & AI
Myrtle Beach, SC
July 11 – 23. 2024

PUBLICATIONS
The Astrogator
The newsletter of the Grand
Strand Astronomers in South
Carolina, in its first year of
publication, covers subjects of
interest to space enthusiasts
and amateur astronomers.
Ask about our white paper
defining the syntax and the
executive report which puts the
planetary address framework into
real world use cases such as
cutting through canyons and
connecting caves on Mars, and
Apollo 15, the first road trip in
space.
The maps are still unpublished.

CURRENT AND PENDING PARTNERSHIPS
FiOR Innovations – US-based mapping company
Astrography – Poland-based online distribution of planetary
artwork, maps, photography, etc., recently incorporated in the US
The Map Shop – US-based online print shop for maps of all kinds

UBER SPACE: THE SPACE
ROADBOTICS END GAME
Investing in a fleet of US roadbots
vs. Investing in a space logistics
platform
Near-term technology, requiring
access to space communications
protocols and channels
Open Planetary Roads Foundation
The proliferation of the US lunar
road maps as a precursor to
adopting the Eskey System as an
international standard provides
an opportunity to gather support
in preparation for the much more
ambitious goal of launching
"Uber Space.“
Benefits to Humankind
• Increased safety
• Better navigation
• Investment in lunar infrastructure
• Global cooperation
• Democratization of space

GET IN TOUCH or GET INVOLVED at RELOQUENCE.COM and
ALIGNABLE
Reloquence is a graduate of Founder Institute San Diego, an idea-stage
accelerator for investible, scalable C corps.
Email: contact@reloquence.com

The First Roads in Space at the 2024 International Space Development Conference

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The First Roads in Space at the 2024 International Space Development Conference