While support from the American people, and the politicians who represent them, is a critical component of the space vision, so to is international cooperation, panelists said during the final meeting of the Commission on the Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy. The commission, held at the Asia Society here, was appointed by President George W. Bush to recommend the steps needed to full his vision of sending humans to the moon and Mars.
"Space is a global industry," said Daniel Sacotte, a director with the European Space Agency's (ESA) human spaceflight, microgravity and exploration programs. "[The vision] is most difficult, but it is most important that we cooperate."
ESA, with its 15 member states, is one of several international partners already working steadily with NASA to keep humans flying to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA also has a close partnership with Russia's Federal Space Agency, whose Soyuz and Progress space vehicle are currently the only means of astronauts and their supplies up to the space station since the grounding of the space shuttle fleet last year. Meanwhile, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) - also an ISS partner - and ESA are developing their own transport vehicles to ferry cargo to and from the space station.
Sacotte said NASA's new space vision, announced by President Bush on Jan. 14, will have a major impact on how ESA moves forward with its own human and space exploration programs.
"We have a series of building blocks in place for this effort," Sacotte told commissioners, adding that Europe would bring its history of competence -- as demonstrated by its successful science programs aboard the ISS -- to the space vision table.
Europe's heavy-lift vehicle, the Arianespace-built Ariane 5 booster, for example, was originally designed as a human-rated rocket capable of lofting the ESA's Hermes space plane, Philippe Berteroittiere, a senior vice president for Arianespace. But the Hermes project was cancelled in 1992, and Ariane 5 developers were allowed to drop some of the rocket's redundancy systems that would have been necessary for a manned launch vehicle, he added.
The lack of a concrete plan, one with specific goals that are more detailed than the broad statement "to the Moon, to Mars and Beyond," has made it difficult for some of NASA's international partners to gauge whether they could be an asset in the vision.
"We'd like to see the details of the plan," said JAXA executive director Kiyoshi Higuchi, adding that the lack of specifics in Bush's vision are partly responsible for JAXA's hesitation to formally commit its resources to assisting NASA. "It makes it difficult for us to single out what technology we can bring to the effort."
More than just the moon
President Bush's vision of reinvigorating human space exploration uses the moon as a waystation to Mars, where NASA and other agencies can work the bugs out of their manned programs before making the red planet leap. But there is more to lunar missions that just Mars practice, experts said.
"Astrobiologists see the moon as more than just a stepping stone to Mars," said Ariel Anbar, an astrobiologist and professor at the University of Rochester, before the commission. "A return to the moon could help answer some questions beyond lunar science."
Anbar told commissioners that studies of the moon's geology could not only give scientists an analog for Earth's ancient geology, but also provide crucial clues into how life began on our planet and not elsewhere. The moon may also contain remains of other planets, cast into space in violent asteroid collisions, which could give researchers an astrobiological picture of other worlds.
Meanwhile, the Defense Advance Research Agency (DARPA) is working on some research that could be adapted into the space vision, including robotics research, a positioning system that relies on X-ray emitting pulsars instead of GPS satellites and an extremely large deployable antenna that could blossom into an operational instrument in orbit.
"The idea is really taking something small into space and then expanding it a workable antenna," said Tony Tether, DARPA's director. The pulsar-based positioning system, he added, would be useful for location determination needs that carry spacecraft outside the orbits of global positioning satellites, added.
Recapturing that old space spirit
But public support in the U.S. will still be a driving force behind any successful space effort, especially if applied to politicians.
Robert Walker, a commission member and former U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania, said that today's senators and other politicians are not feeling any political pressure from space advocates, and that a more comprehensive effort on the public's part would be necessary to show their interest in a more robust NASA.
"The challenge is that space doesn't touch the daily lives of Americans the way health issues, veteran's issues and gun control do," explained Louis Friedman, co-founder of space advocacy group the Planetary Society, to commissioners. "It's one of those things, like education, which people normally think of as a good thing, but they ask 'What does it do for me?'"
During its hurly-burly days in the race with Russia to put humans in space, NASA's most attractive quality was in the imaginations of the American people, who hoped they would soon join the astronauts on spacewalks, panelists said.
"What NASA seemed to forget was that then, we all wanted to go," Tether told commissioners. "We were forgotten about."
But if NASA can find a way for American citizens to take the baby steps that would eventually allow them to reach the moon - or even just space - themselves, it would do wonders for the space agency's support, he added.
"If you can do that, you will have a constituency that you don't have today," Tether said.
Monday's commission session was the first in two days of hearings scheduled this week. The meeting is the last of five held by the commission, before making its recommendations to President Bush early next month.
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