Unlike the ISS you don’t need an docking port for a lunar base, so different landers , by different countries will work find. And the different habitat modules don’t need to stattion keep, so different habitats could be built and delivered by different countries, just as different contractors build offices in an industrial park. And the same goes for the robots, instruments, etc.

A lunar base would be more like an RV park by a recreation area then a closely knit structure like the ISS. So different countries could add and support it without the lockstep needed to build the ISS. Think of it as a town in the wilderness where each building is independently built, but walking distance to the others for support.

However, some international collaborations, especially big ones like ISS, have a tendency to grow beyond the ability of anyone (or any country) to really get a handle on it, manage it, change it, or cancel it if warranted. The commitments become more important than the mission. The commitments might inoculate the program and make it impossible to cancel. In some ways this would be great; get everyone on the hook and nobody can stop it. Maybe that’s how you make it through all the budget and political turmoil, yes? But if by building the program around such commitments you lose the ability to alter the program if you’ve gone down the wrong path, you might be stuck, too.

Can an international exploration initiative be structured in such a way as to maximize the positive aspects of cooperation without tying everyone’s hands? If so, how do you do that? Thoughts?

The commercial end of things is strengthened, as is an emphasis on NEO mitigation, and a strong budget. The design of any lunar habitation, interestingly, should include maintenance autonomy. The L1 Advanced Component observatory.

Is the budget enough, and does the bill address ITAR concerns sufficiently?

It’s a high bid ahead of a long negotiation process. I must say I expected much worse.

Jeff, all good points. But I wonder, are there enough contracts out there, and has enough money been spent to deter Congress or the next President from forcing NASA to shift gears? My sense is that there is not

Earlier today I drove past the monument to the ability to change plans, the Saturn 5 outside of the Johnson Space Center. As I recall, and many people here will chime in with corrections, there were three Apollo missions that were cancelled at the end of the program. At least one was (partly?) stacked at KSC and parts of that booster are on display at JSC today. They destacked it, floated it to Houston, and put it on display.

Enhanced international cooperation in other aspects of the overall exploration effort seems more feasible, and other nations have various capabilities that they can bring to bear, as Dennis Wingo outlined above. However, that assumes that the current exploration effort proceeds in something close to its current form for the long term, as many of those opportunities won’t materialize for years to come.

Of course, come January 20 of next year, all bets are off…

There are a zillion things that ESA could provide.

1. Comsat/positioning constellation.
2. Surface modules (Alenia built ISS Node 2 and 3 as well as Columbus)
3. Materials processing (many many contributions)
4. Logistics (Ariane V class lunar landers)
5. Navigation and Rendezvous and Docking technology

ESA has a hell of a lot to contribute and they are a great partner after they make up their minds.

JAXA

1. Materials Technology
2. Robotics (major major contribution)
3. Logistics (lighter weight landers using the H-IIA.
4. Lunar Surface Operations

JAXA and Shimizu have thought a lot about these areas and have an amazing competence in robotics.

This is one of the key political problems with ESAS and or DIRECT style heavy lift architectures in that in order to lower the unit costs you have to fly all the payloads on those vehicles, which is just self defeating.

Ray said Does anyone have ideas on what international organizations could add to the core lunar effort, and would they want to? Could they plug in a redundant component that could integrate into the rest of the architecture, [snip]

International organizations (probably only ESA at the moment, though JAXA is not too far behind) could significantly contribute to various Lunar missions. For instance, on the X-38, our avionics were donated by ESA (I forget exactly how the loan was arranged, but I know that we shipped all the avionics boxes back to Europe). On the Station, ESA contributed the Columbus, Japan contributed Kibo, Canada contributed the SSRMS and DEXTRE. ESA is flying the ATV right now, and it integrates with the Russian side of the Station pretty well.

Of course, a few years ago ESA also contributed the Spacelab – built in Turin, Italy. Dennis Wingo probably has some fond memories of that program.

Given the chance, international partners could contribute habitation modules, power generation, additional logistics that could dock with a Lunar expedition in orbit, etc.

They certainly have the smarts and experience.

The question of if they would want to calls out for a separate post, that would seem to diverge from the original intent of this thread (GASP! Dare we diverge??).

1) While the language in the bill on international participation in NASA’s human space exploration efforts is limited, the entire section on NASA’s human space exploration activities is titled “International Exploration Initiative”. Were the bill enacted and closely pursued by the next Administration, that title could presage more of a shift towards greater foreign involvement than the text indicates.

2) There’s also the question of timing. Under the current Constellation plan, there is no significant opportunity for foreign contributions to NASA’s human lunar return effort until sometime after 2020, after the first human lunar landings. The bill text may be an attempt to accelerate the pursuit of foreign agreements in an attempt to make the lunar effort more sustainable and immune to changes in U.S. politics, as Russian involvement did for ISS.

FWIW…