The Space Commission Report


The Commission appointed by President Bush to study implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration delivered its final report today. The full report can be downloaded (2.17 MB, Adobe PDF) from the Commission web site.

Spaceflight Now provides a comprehensive report. The article describes the Commission's numerous recommendations, some of which are:

The panel recommended establishment of a permanent Space Exploration Council, chaired by the vice president or some other high-ranking official, that would include representatives of all appropriate federal agencies. Reporting directly to the president, the council would be empowered "to develop policies and coordinate work by its agencies to share technologies, facilities and talent with NASA to support the national space exploration vision."

At the same time, NASA's Apollo-era management structure "must be decisively transformed," the commission said, recommending that:

NASA should turn over many functions to private industry with the ultimate goal being to allow "private industry to assume the primary role of providing services to NASA, and most immediately in accessing low-Earth orbit. In NASA decisions, the preferred choice for operational activities must be competitively awarded contracts with private and non-profit organizations." NASA's role, the panel concluded, should be limited to those areas "where there is irrefutable demonstration that only government can perform the proposed activity."


NASA should define clear lines of authority and accountability as part of a more focused and integrated agency.


NASA field centers should be restructured as Federally Funded Research and Development Centers in which a contractor operates the facility for the government. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which is operated for NASA by the California Institute of Technology, is an example of a working FFRDC. Putting other NASA centers on a similar footing would "enable innovation" and "stimulate economic development," the panel said. Some functions, however, would remain under direct government control.


Three new NASA organizations be created: A technical advisory board that would provide an independent assessment of technical feasibility and risk mitigation; an independent panel to verify cost estimates; a research organization to sponsor development of high-risk technology.


NASA should adopt personnel and management reforms in line with accepted policies and practices in place across cutting edge government and industry organizations.
The panel recommended that NASA establish teams to identify critical enabling technologies and "aggressively use its contractual authority to reach broadly into the commercial and non-profit communities to bring the best ideas, technologies and management tools into the accomplishment of exploration goals."
Congress should provide financial incentives, the commission said, to attract entrepreneurs to the high frontier. And Congress should re-examine existing treaties to resolve open questions about property rights in space to encourage development of space infrastructure.

Later in the article, these recommendations are included:

The commission also recommended that NASA:

Seek input from the scientific community to "ensure that maximum use is made of existing assets and emerging capabilities."


Ask the National Academy of Sciences to consider "how machines and humans, used separately and in combination, can maximize scientific returns."


Use a "discovery-based criterion" for selecting destinations beyond the moon and Mars "that also considers affordability, technical maturity, scientific important and emerging capabilities including access to in situ space resources."