White House panel wants reduced NASA role in launches

WASHINGTON -- A White House panel of space experts, wrestling with questions about how to pay for expeditions to the moon and Mars, wants NASA to give private companies a broader role and a greater share of the financial burden.

The presidential commission will recommend that NASA's role in missions be limited to "areas where there is irrefutable demonstration that only government can perform the proposed activity," according to a summary of its conclusions obtained by The Associated Press.

Responsibility for manned spaceflight would stay with NASA.

The commission's final report is expected this week. President Bush has proposed establishing a lunar base within two decades and a manned landing on Mars after 2030.

The president's panel, led by former astronaut Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge, describes how to meet Bush's exploration objectives "within reasonable schedules and affordable costs." Its recommendations are aimed at least partly toward easing the burden for taxpayers by increasing commercialization of the nation's space program.

A broader role for private industry in America's space program, however, could reignite debate over astronaut safety in an environment where corporations are driven to reduce costs, generate shareholder profits and meet contractual promises.

The board that investigated the Columbia breakup in 2003 criticized NASA's "substantial transfers of safety responsibility from the government to the private sector" during its greater reliance on private contractors since the mid-1990s.

The White House commission said NASA should allow private companies "to assume the primary role of providing services to NASA and most immediately in accessing low-Earth orbit." It said it anticipates "reasonable risk ... along with some failures."

Experts said that clearly signals an intention to hand over nearly all space launches except manned missions to private corporations.

"It carves out the launch of astronauts," said George T. Whitesides, head of the National Space Society, a nonprofit group that advocates space exploration. "I'm sure there will be a lot of debate about that over the coming weeks."

The commission will encourage NASA to "aggressively use its contractual authority" to foster new technologies and ideas. It wants NASA to assess current launch technologies, which would be handed over to the private sector.

It also will recommend that Congress offer prize money as incentives for scientists who accomplish space missions or develop helpful technology. Already, the X Prize Foundation is offering a $10 million prize for the first privately financed manned spaceflight.

"This is really reprogramming the country's commitment to civilian space," said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a member of the panel that investigated the Columbia breakup.

The commission's conclusions could be enormously lucrative for NASA's primary contractor, the United Space Alliance LLC of Houston, a partnership between the Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. with more than 10,000 employees who handle most space shuttle duties.

The administration has been sensitive to questions about the enormous cost of Bush's moon-Mars plan. The White House has asked for a $1 billion increase in NASA's budget over five years. It has indicated otherwise that the agency's budget, which amounts to less than 1 percent of the overall federal budget, would see little growth.

Some experts have said President Bush's goals ultimately could cost $1 trillion. A proposal by President Bush's father to fly to Mars withered when its cost estimates approached $450 billion.

"Never let it be said that NASA tends to overestimate the cost of its missions," said Douglas Osheroff, a widely renowned physicist who investigated the Columbia accident. "The cost in present-day dollars ... I think it's going to be one trillion."

The conclusions by the White House commission were first disclosed by www.space.com, an Internet news site for astronomy and space enthusiasts.