Wake up call

It is clear that the US space program will undergo major transformation in the coming decades and that NASA as conceived in the 1960s has to be rethought. Manned flight is a major component of the Chinese space program. A major Chinese success that out does US historical space achievement will be a wake up call. At this point the most likely such achievement is to establish permanent operations on the Moon. What would the US do if the Chinese operations included facilities to mine water and other facilities to process regolith to construct PV arrays and other products on the Moon? We have not ratified the Moon Treaty so our Chinese friends will have an open field to exploit the greatest mineral find in human history. Commercial development of the Moon is not a role for NASA. A government entity structured specifically to foster industrial development of the Moon would provide a way to continue to exercise US space leadership. Such an entity would be more similar to the TVA or an economic development agency than NASA. NASA was needed at a time when commercial space operations were not feasible. The coming decades will see rapidly increasing commercial space operations. Facilitating commercial space development, including special financing mechanisms for long term projects such as the industrializaiton of the Moon cannot be carried out by any thinkable evolotion of NASA. NASA-Next is the wrong way to think about the problem. The vast undertaking that lies ahead, following the Von Braun, Krafft Ehrike, O=Neill vision, is to industrially develop the Moon and near space while continuing to explore the Solar System and beyond with a transformed NASA.