A NASA Lunar Science Conference is being held here at the NASA Ames Research Center in the heart of Silicon Valley, a major confab of Moon experts brought together by the space agency’s new Lunar Science Institute.

A public day was held on Sunday, July 20th - marking the anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic mission of human exploration of the Moon way back in 1969.

Meanwhile, NASA’s 21st century Vision for Space Exploration — the Moon, Mars and Beyond mandate — was set in motion by President George W. Bush in January 2004.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is touted as the first mission in that vision, kicking off a series of robotic treks to the Moon starting no later than 2008, as called for in the Bush push.

But the word here is that LRO is being delayed until February 2009 - kind of reaching its own escape velocity in terms of calendar date and sticking to the vision script of action items.

In another Moon memo, it was announced at the meeting that the world’s first astronomical observatory bound for the lunar landscape will be a joint venture between the International Lunar Observatory (ILO) Association and Google Lunar X Prize contender Odyssey Moon.

Odyssey Moon is one of several groups vying in the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize competition.

The ILO would be delivered to the Moon aboard the second lunar lander that Odyssey Moon intends to fly early in the next decade. The association consists of a consortium of scientists from, to date, Canada, China, India, Europe, Japan and Hawaii/USA.

In Moon-breaking news, it was also noted that Space Age Publishing Company — the ILO Association’s commercial affiliate, intends to broadcast its Space Calendar weekly and Lunar Enterprise Daily via the International Lunar Observatory.