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Architectures

Mark Whittington refers to an RTTM board posting on four of the general architectures being considered by the Lunar Strategy Roadmap Committee.

Mark likes #4, and I have to agree. It has the ring of a terrestrial port authority or industrial park, which by their nature imply infrastructure construction as an incubator for commercial development.

Another potential benefit to establishing a development authority is the possibility of sidestepping some of the tranzi opposition to property rights in space. If the development authority could be “chartered” through a sufficiently broad multilateral agreement, for instance, it could serve as a sort of “land office” for private land claims, recognizing such claims while simultaneously providing “rules of the game” for the process to mitigate the effects that those who support “common heritage” language are (or claim to be) concerned about.

The first three options have lesser merit (particularly #3), which is further diminished by the apparent prejudice against turning over to the private sector whatever presence has been established on the Moon when NASA decides to move on to Mars.

(Despite the title of this blog, I’m not in favor of the sort of mad dash to Mars #3 implies…I’ll support whatever architecture has the best chance of getting us into space, in the generic sense, to stay.)

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