Sir Norman Foster — designer of the Winspear Opera House, the subject of an exhibition opening this Saturday at the Nasher and soon, a visitor to our fair shores for the gala opening of the AT&T PAC — has decided that the Earth is running out of room for his architecture. His firm, Foster + Partners, has joined a consortium seeking a contract for the Aurora Program of the European Space Agency.

The plan? “The agency’s objective is to devise, and then implement, a plan for robotic and human exploration of the solar system, with the Moon and Mars as the most likely targets, and to to establish a more permanent presence on the Moon.”