OP/ED: The Moon Mars and Beyond

CNN.com

President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond handed its report to the White House on Wednesday, recommending that NASA change its basic structure to carry out the next generation of space travel.

Edward Aldridge, chairman of the commission, said Vice President Dick Cheney accepted the report "positively."

Aldridge praised America's space program as a symbol of U.S. leadership vital to economic growth, national security and the future of space exploration.

"While discovery is the goal of space exploration, the journey is at least as important as the destination," he said.

He added that NASA was already on its way to realizing changes outlined in the report. The commission's report recommends that NASA transform its basic structure to achieve manned exploration of the moon and Mars in coming decades.

It calls for a slimmed-down space agency that contracts many of the space roles it once pioneered to private enterprise and streamline its own operations.

"NASA's relationship to the private sector, its organizational structure, business culture, and management process -- all largely inherited from the Apollo era -- must be decisively transformed to implement the new ... space exploration vision," the commission stated.
The 60-page report, "A Journey to Inspire, Innovate, and Discover," made its sweeping recommendations following five months of hearings from thousands of people including space luminaries, science fiction writers and citizens.

The nine-member commission said commercial nature of space should become "the primary focus" of the country's new space exploration vision. Given the proper encouragement, "an entirely new set of businesses can emerge that will seek profit in space," the report stated.

It said that NASA should enter only areas where there is "irrefutable" evidence the government is solely qualified to perform space activities. The rest should become the business of a private space industry that is in its infancy despite billions in government expenditure over the last half century.

For now, that means human space flight -- at least in Earth orbit and beyond -- will remain NASA's domain.

The space agency's progress toward the stars faltered after the Apollo missions, which landed Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin on the moon, ended in 1972.



Please visit the link provided for the complete story.