Augustine Underway

Hearings of the Augustine Committee, which will advise President Obama on the future of NASA's manned spaceflight program, began holding hearings last week. The CEOs of some private launch companies, not surprisingly, argued they could launch NASA's new Orion capsule more cheaply rhan NASA could develop the new Aries 1 rocket to do it. Later, however, Mr. Augustine, a former chairman of Lochheed Martin, did say that some of those companies were further along than he'd thought.

Key to maintaining a long term exploration initiative is building broad support for it. Bringing private industry, and therefore the profit motive, into the program could start to do that. Perhaps not coincidentally, profit was a factor in the European exploration efforts that, for good and ill, ushered in the modern world. International partners in establishing a lunar base would also be useful; it is likely inevitable. The Augustine Committee may not get into such overtly political, diplomatically complex areas, but perhaps it should.