And after the wonderful words from this president regarding Nasa being relevent, I suspect this will be a good change.

I agree with the sentiment. Foreign participation, without further definition, is a means, not an end.

That said, maintaining foreign commitments can be a very powerful political rationale for meeting domestic budget commitments to a project. For example, I’d argue that European and Japanese contributions to the ISS partnership have forced the U.S. to continue ISS buildout long after ISS deployment ceased being the top priority for NASA human space flight — and at a cost to the U.S. that far exceeds the cost of those foreign contributions.

Of course, to your point, ideally we would not get caught in these kinds of empty or costly partnerships in the future. A foreign partnership should do more than just provide a rationale for a program — it should also deliver a concrete, material benefit. The claimed benefits can be to the program itself, such as shared subsystem costs and the resulting cost savings to the U.S. (most science missions), or operational resiliency (as the Ruskies have provided to the ISS). Or the claimed benefits can be external to the program (such as keeping former Soviet aerospace engineers engaged in peaceful pursuits rather than missile proliferation by bringing Russia into the ISS partnership).

FWIW…

Should we cooperate internationally on the human exploration/development/settlement of the inner solar system? Almost certainly, but HOW? Just as importantly: we should be clear on WHY. what specifically will that get us? are circumstances/events really likely to ‘turn out’ that way?

This question should be asked of the EU, Russia, China and the others interested in this great endeavor, not just Nasa and Congress.

To some extent this is the chicken or the egg conundrum.

I think it is true that VSE won’t survive without other countries actively participating and lobbying Congress. But I don’t see them committing until they see the US committing. That will only occur when we have hardware in production such as Ares V or its capability in some other guise. That will be a very long wait. Much can change in the next 10 years before Ares V would optimistically be ready. So if the US doesn’t commit to CLV, Orion, Ares V why would the international think the US is serious?
In the mean time, without International sponsorship Congress will want to see what Nasa will do with the shiny rockets it is asked to fund. Nasa saying it will own the critical path insulates it from Congress accusing them of not having a plan. The worst thing for Nasa is to say, “What will we do with these rockets? Well we’re working with the Russians, Europeans, Japanese, Indians on that and we’ll get their plans to the committee just as soon as we know what they are.”

ESA is committed to their Mars strategy right now and is none to interested. I talked with Frederic Nordlund, their rep here in DC, at a CSIS event last month and they are sitting on the sidelines for now waiting to see what will happen in Nov 2008. Japan is definitely interested in contributing are happy to take whatever work we give em. Though right now their funds are tied up to ISS commitments.

Russia will refuse to take the subservient role on VSE that NASA is trying to give them. They are concentrating their efforts on trying to work closer with the Europeans on developing a possible program with them without the US. not to say that the EU is big on that exactly, but watch closely to how well they integrate Soyuz in Guiana.

The Chinese will just continue on their merry path as neither the US nor the EU is talking much about cooperating with them on something of that scale.

I agree whole-heartedly with anonymous in the without a strong international relations angle, the long term health of VSE is low. The problem with NASA right now getting that angle is that they are not able to come to grips with the fact that they can no longer dictate the terms of the agreement. They want total control and to keep the critical path. Both EU and Russia are unwilling to give the US that role. Both are insisting that they be viewed as full partners in any large scale endeavor. They will only come on board if there is a true, integrated approach to establishing a lunar colony.

In judging presidential candidates, the question I think that is most important to ask them is not their philosophy on space per se, but what is their philosophy on international collaboration for r&d? Do they see a global community working together to accomplish great things or do they see the need for an individual nation to attempt to attempt to cling onto a technological superiority that is rapidly diminishing?

Has anyone read about ESA, the Russians or Chinese having flush accounts for lunar outposts? Those agencies asking Nasa where they can contribute?

My guess is there is little overseas money available for the next 10 years. ISS is just now getting to be a useful return to the Euro’s and Japanese. They’ll want to recoup their investment before sailing off to Fra Mauro.

I don’t see anything wrong with this at all”

In theory, there is nothing wrong with this approach. In practice, it has problems, especially in the near-term. Until the U.S. delivers or is close to delivering on those transportation and communications systems sometime in the latter half of the next decade (if the effort gets that far), there’s nothing for foreign partners to contribute to. Although the VSE makes a big deal about international cooperation, ESAS/Griffin implementation has essentially terminated the potential for any international contributions until the 2015-2020 time period, at the earliest.

If you don’t care about international cooperation, that’s still not a big deal. But to the extent that the program needs a foreign policy rationale to help justify its spending in the near-term or to the extent that the program needs to share costs with other nations (and I’d argue that it needs both), an all-U.S. system with no international involvement is not necessarily a good thing.

“and I welcome any candidate to find fault with it. Let them say where US taxpayers are spending too much money for US programs at the expense of foreign workers.”

Speaking as a taxpayer, voter, and space cadet, I’d much rather have lower taxes because County A, B, and C are also contributing to the lunar return effort than higher taxes because of some misbeggotten policy decision that confuses space exploration with industrial subsidies. Our civil space program should first and foremost be about rolling back the frontiers of space exploration, science, and technology — not about how many engineers we can keep employed in certain congressional districts.

FWIW…