taking the LEAD

taking the LEAD

Mark Whittington discusses a new way for America and the world to approach development of the moon. The Lunar Exploration and Development Authority (LEAD) would be a marked departure from NASA's current way of doing business:

This would include data buys from commercial lunar missions and commercially developed lunar navigation and communication systems. The LEAD would also lease lunar infrastructure, such as habitation modules, from commercial firms. If commercial firms were not available or it was not feasible to develop resources commercially the LEAD would do it and then look at selling it off afterward.

An idea like this is essential if commercial development - indeed, any development - of the moon, Mars and beyond is to occur.

Plainly, NASA cannot simply continue operating the way that it has for the last 30 years, going 'round and 'round in circles. NASA cannot continue to act as both administration and industry. If NASA keeps on being (or creating the impression that it is) the entirety of the space industry, then we will get the same thing that we have had since the end of Apollo: stifled innovation, low-volume spacecraft production, high overhead, and little if anything in the way of actual results.

An idea like LEAD or something similar will bring the full force of the market to bear in opening up this new frontier. Of course, NASA could conceivably continue down its current path, acting as an impediment to the fledgling space industry. They could try that - however, with the emergence of commercial spaceflight nearing a reality (as evidenced by SpaceShipOne's three successful flights to suborbital space, and the subsequent involvement of Virgin Galactic), NASA runs the risk of irrelevancy.

So to new NASA administrator Mike Griffin, it is decision time: LEAD, follow, or get the hell out of the way.