"Experts" Arrive to Save NASA

» NYT: Experts to Discuss U.S. Space Plan (John Schwartz)

Back to the Moon? Push on to Mars? Visit an asteroid?

At Stanford University on Tuesday, 50 space experts and advocates from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, industry, academia and advocacy groups are gathering to ask whether the United States is on the right track in its plans to reach the Moon by 2020, build a long-term lunar base there and eventually send humans to Mars.

Louis Friedman, a founder of the Planetary Society, a space exploration advocacy group, said one reason for the meeting was that a new president and Congress would be coming to Washington next year. And whoever that may be, he said, "there are new political forces coming in that are not wedded to the vision for space exploration" put forth in 2004 by President Bush.

Dr. Friedman, a host of the meeting, said that with the tight budget for space exploration, it was a good time to hash out ideas to prepare for the transition.

This is not the only such effort, but it is the one that has gotten the most attention. Early coverage of the meeting, which was first described last month by the magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology, suggested that even before the meeting, those attending were ready to recommend scrapping proposals for a long-term lunar base and moving on quickly to explore asteroids.

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The workshop has clearly rankled Michael Griffin, NASA's administrator, who issued a response last month arguing that "the questions to be raised at this conference have been asked and answered." Many voices, he said, were heard in the planning of the program, which Congress finalized in 2005.

In an interview last week, Dr. Griffin said: "We spent three years reassessing the policy and codifying it. Changing it now? I think that's just stupid." He has suggested that some of the opposition is a sour-grapes effort by aerospace contractors who wanted a second shot at rich contracts. But, he said last week, "We don't change space policy in the United States very often -- if so, you can't get anything done."

That isn't the language of a serious scientist on the verge of some great exploration ... it's the language of a bureaucrat seeking to defend his turf. And though I suspect he's correct in reading the motivations of some involved with the meeting reported, that only continues to emphasize that government-run space exploration needs to be a thing of the past.