Friday, September 3, 2004

Mr. Thomas Luedtke

Director of Procurement

Procurement Directorate

NASA Headquarters

300 E Street SW

Washington, D.C. 20546

cc: L. W. Bailets, Procurement Analyst at lbailets@nasa.gov

Re: RFI --Expanded Use of NASA Contractual Authority to Obtain Ideas, Technologies, and Management Tools for Accomplishing Space Exploration Goals

Solicitation Number: NASA-SNOTE-040813-002

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The most important recommendation of the President's Commission on Implementation of U.S. Space Exploration Policy was Recommendation 5-2.

"Recommendation 5-2. The Commission recommends that Congress increase the potential for commercial opportunities related to the national space exploration vision by:

§ Providing incentives for entrepreneurial investment in space.

§ Creating significant monetary prizes for the accomplishment of space missions and/or technology developments.

§ Assuring appropriate property rights for those who seek to develop space resources and infrastructure."

The Aldridge commission's report outlines one of the possible ways the U.S. could establish a commercial incentive as recommended:

"... the Commission suggests that … as an example of a particularly challenging prize concept, $100 million to $1 billion could be offered to the first organization to place humans on the Moon and sustain them for a fixed period before they return to Earth."

The other way the U.S. could provide such an incentive is through establishing a system of recognized property rights in space, such as that proposed by the “Space Settlement Initiative” (available at http://SpaceSettlement.Org/ ). That way would be less conventional but would have the advantage of not requiring any appropriation of government money.

Is there any way NASA could contribute to the creation of a prize for privately funded space settlement,

– perhaps to be called “The NASA Prize” – offering either or both of these possible incentives?

If the private sector could be provided a powerful incentive to finance and build a regular space transportation system and permanent Lunar base, concerns about a long-range space program overly burdening the taxpayer would evaporate. Corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and others already have the technical capability. All they’ve needed is a sufficient profit motivation.

The “Space Settlement Initiative” would instantly create a strong profit incentive for private industry to underwrite the development of Lunar bases.

The Space Settlement Initiative invokes a tried-and-true mechanism used successfully by governments throughout history to encourage development of uninhabited regions – the allocation to private entities of large tracts of land in exchange for building settlements and facilities that meet government-defined standards and benefit everyone.

While traditional land grants similar to those used by the U.S. government to develop the old West are not possible in space because national ownership of land is forbidden by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, legislation could be enacted to achieve the same ends using the related concept of "land claim recognition."

Under a land claim recognition protocol, Congress could pass legislation providing that for any private, non-government corporation or consortium that financed and built a space transportation system and permanent Moon base, a limited (but still very large) claim to Lunar land around the base would be legally "recognized" by the U.S. government.

Recognition means the government would acquiesce to, or decide not to contest, the claim – but not assume any sovereignty over it. Once the space transportation system and Lunar base were certified, the private consortium would be free to immediately mortgage or sell, back here at home, some of their Lunar land deeds to recoup their investment and make a profit.

Would NASA consider supporting an economic incentive bill in Congress as the Aldridge Commission recommended – promising either a huge monetary prize or land claim recognition, or both?

“The NASA Prize” would be a farsighted effort to redefine U.S. space policy – while saving taxpayers billions of dollars – by creating an entirely new class of incentive for private industry

Sincerely,

Alan Wasser

Chairman

The Space Settlement Institute

Alan.Wasser@space-settlement-institute.org