May 2, 2006 – NASA held its invitation-only Exploration Strategy Workshop in Washington, DC last week, the first step in a process that will continue through the year, culminating in the Integrated Global Lunar Exploration Strategy.
OVERVIEW
After a day of background briefings, everybody was assigned to one of seven multi-disciplinary breakout teams for two days. Each team was chartered with the same tasks (summarized):
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Identify the breadth of objectives that could be accomplished as part of a lunar exploration strategy |
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Develop a list of the policy, technical, legal and other issues, enablers and constraints that participants believe require further research as part of the development of a lunar exploration strategy |
It's important to note we were not asked to discuss how to execute a lunar exploration strategy, but rather to focus on why we are going to the Moon and what we should do upon arrival.
PARTICIPANTS
Foundation co-founder and Vision Project Manager Rick Tumlinson and I participated, along with app. 200 others from various backgrounds, including:
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International guests from the European Space Agency as well as 12 countries (India, China, Korea, Australia, Russia, Ukraine, Japan, Germany, Italy, England, France, Canada) |
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U.S. Federal employees from NASA State Department, U.S. Geological Survey, National Science Foundation, Office of Science and Technology Policy, National Research Council and Capitol Hill Staff |
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Private Sector guests from traditional aerospace companies, as well as non-traditional and entrepreneurial space commercialization companies |
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Academic participants from universities throughout the world |
Several Foundation Advocates were also invited, representing their own companies and organizations. These included:
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David Gump, President, Transformational Space Corp. (tSpace) |
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Jim Muncy, President, PoliSpace |
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Berin Szoka, Executive Director, Institute for Space Law and Policy |
RESULTS
What was initially planned as a primarily NASA-only small workshop became, at Administrator Mike Griffin's direction, this workshop for obtaining non-NASA, non-govt. input... and NASA got an earful.
The results were astounding! Since 1988 the Foundation has been working to change the conversation about space, and its core message permeated this workshop. Every one of the seven breakout teams determined that NASA's lunar exploration strategy and architecture must include, at the outset, processes to ensure that commerce/economic development and permanent settlement are part of an international endeavor. It was understood that this is the only way to have unending science and exploration on a massive, and ultimately solar system, scale.
One of the planners of the original small workshop told me how valuable this larger workshop was, because it generated ideas that could not have come from within NASA. Similarly, all the teams emphasized that these ideas must not be lost within NASA, and that NASA alone cannot champion the ideas created outside the organization. Considering the comments of NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale, Deputy Assoc. Administrator for Exploration Systems Doug Cooke, and other NASA managers, I am very hopeful that NASA has truly reached a turning point in its acceptance of the Foundation's themes.
And yet, it is by no means certain how and at what level our ideas will prevail. There are still NASA managers who ask why they need to think of commerce and work with the NewSpace industry. There are still those at NASA who do not see that commerce serves settlement, and settlement serves science and exploration. So, the Foundation will remain engaged in this process and do everything possible to ensure that this incredible workshop is but the beginning of opening the space frontier to all humanity.
Jeff Krukin
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