Harrison H. Schmitt

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Conceptual Systems Engineering Applied to a Return to Deep Space</p>
INCOSE, October 26, 2009</p></p>

Abstract</p></p>

The United States has two basic options for both assuring results from and continuation of a "sustained commitment" to deep space exploration and settlement.  On the one hand, it could continue to restructure and revitalize NASA under the Vision for Space Exploration articulated by President George W. Bush and to provide that Vision with a guarantee of continued funding sufficient to do the job.  A tough order in the current national political environment, but one the former President and Congress directed NASA to undertake.  Alternatively, the country's entrepreneurial sector could persuade national and international investors to make sustaining commitments based on the economic potential of lunar resources.  Not easy, but at least predictable in terms of what conditions investors require to be met relative to other competitive uses of their capital.  Either approach requires initial conceptual systems engineering to integrate selection of appropriate approaches to launch systems, spacecraft, and lunar surface systems with the demands of program and financial risk management.</p></p>
International law relative to outer space, specifically the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, also must be integrated with plans to return to the Moon, a further demand on conceptual systems engineering.  The Outer Space Treaty permits properly licensed and regulated commercial endeavors.  Under the Treaty, lunar resources can be extracted and owned, but national sovereignty cannot be asserted over the resource area.  History clearly shows that a system of internationally sanctioned private property, consistent with the Treaty, would encourage lunar settlement and development far more than the establishment of a lunar "commons" as envisioned by the largely unratified 1979 Moon Agreement.  Legal systems encompassing the recognition of private property have provided far more benefit to the world than those that attempt to manage common ownership.</p></p>
Whenever and however a Return to the Moon occurs, one thing is certain: that return will be historically comparable to the movement of our species out of Africa about 50,000 years ago.  Further, if led by an entity representing the democracies of the Earth, a return to the Moon to stay will be comparable to the first permanent settlement of North America by European immigrants relative to the perpetuation of human liberty.