When it comes to competing for NASA business, there is perhaps no rivalry more intense than Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Both aerospace giants opened new offices this year to better jockey for position in the race for potentially billions of dollars in the space exploration contracts NASA plans to award in the years ahead.

But when it comes to promoting the new U.S. space exploration plan -- which entails a return to the moon by 2020 -- the two rivals have united in common cause.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin are the driving forces behind the Coalition for Space Exploration, an industry group established to promote the space exploration vision put forward by President George W. Bush in January.

John Karas, Lockheed Martin vice president for space exploration, said the company joined the coalition out of recognition that building and sustaining support for the vision is one of the key challenges ahead. “Lockheed Martin and the rest of the industry aren’t just here to provide technical solutions,” Karas said in a recent interview. “It’s the responsibility of industry to help get the word out to the key stakeholders and the general public.”

Chuck Allen, Boeing’s vice president of space exploration systems, said many of the companies in the coalition, not just Boeing and Lockheed Martin, often face each other on opposite sides of a competition. But that is not getting in the way of pulling together to promote a vision that Allen described as vital to both the nation and the aerospace industry.

“There is no business if we were to -- heaven forbid -- decide to get out of the manned spaceflight business,” Allen said. But Allen said that beyond the obvious parochial interest in supporting an initiative that could command billions of dollars of NASA’s budget in years to come, the coalition participants truly believe in the vision and want to help NASA sell the vision to Congress and the public.

“We really feel like this is the first time in a while NASA has a clear vision directed by the White House,” he said. “It’s bold, ambitious and it’s not well understood. Because it’s not well understood the people and Congress understandably have a lot of questions.”

The coalition took out full-page ads in USA Today and 10 other newspapers nationwide in February to trumpet the agenda and publicize the benefits of space exploration to life on Earth. More ads, both print and radio, are planned for the months ahead.

Here in Washington, lobbyists working for the companies and associations participating in the coalition meet each week to compare notes on how the vision is faring on Capitol Hill and to coordinate the message they deliver to lawmakers.

“It’s safe to say almost all of the companies involved have the potential to be on opposite sides of the competition table,” said Brian Chase, vice president of Washington operations for the Colorado Springs-based Space Foundation. “But the industry understands the importance of pulling together and presenting a united front.”

The non-profit Space Foundation is a central organizing force behind the coalition. Chase serves as a liaison between the coalition’s government affairs and public affairs groups, keeping the two sides coordinated.

The government affairs group, which includes ATK Thiokol, the Aerospace Industries Association, Ball Aerospace, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, the Space Enterprise Council at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Space Transportation Association and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, is co-chaired by Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

United Space Alliance, the Houston-based Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that operates the space shuttle fleet, chairs the public affairs group. That group coordinates the coalition’s advertising campaigns and consists of many of the same companies and organizations.

Chase said the driving motivation behind the group is to tell the general public and their elected representatives why space exploration is important and to demonstrate that the U.S. aerospace industry is united behind the new vision.

“It’s one thing for the president to lay out a vision,” Chase said. “It’s another thing for the space community to embrace it.”

Chase said the coalition has raised $1 million through member contributions to fund outreach activities in the months ahead. Radio and print ads are being developed to target 10 U.S. media markets, including Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; Nashville, Tenn.; St. Louis; Utica, N.Y.; and Wichita, Kan. — home turf, incidentally, for some of the key NASA appropriators and authorizers in Congress.