Commercial efforts could reshape future of NASA

After nearly a decade of operating under former Administrator Daniel S. Goldin and his "faster, better, cheaper" mantra, NASA is about to get a sweeping makeover.

A new leader has been named to reform the beleaguered space agency: Sean O'Keefe, the Office of Management and Budget's deputy director. O'Keefe is faced with the daunting task of getting NASA's budget back on track while maintaining the agency's vision. Among his assignments: finding ways to reconcile the roughly $5 billion in cost overruns for the International Space Station.

But while Washington policy makers focus on (or, as some space aficionados lament since the war began, ignore) NASA's new head and the agency's ailing finances, less-conspicuous changes are also in store for the U.S. space program. NASA leaders are busy trying to devise a broad new commercialization policy.

The new strategy seeks to create more and stronger partnerships with the private sector, including collaborations with the entertainment and advertising industries.

"My hope is that this commercial space policy will provide an environment where the future Wright Brothers won't feel inhibited," said NASA Chief of Staff and White House Liaison Courtney Stadd in an interview with National Journal.

Stadd, who joined the agency in January, is overseeing the report on NASA's new commercial aims. He envisions a future in which business leaders--representing, for example, pharmaceutical companies--would sponsor experiments using NASA expertise and would also take on the financial risks involved. Stadd's report was expected this fall, but after some in the industry criticized the draft policy, NASA pushed back the release date to early next year.

Pat Dasch, the executive director of the National Space Society, was briefed on the draft in September. She applauded the agency for "trying to come to grips with a very difficult topic," but said that parts of the policy "needed some further thinking."

"One of the big drawbacks of the draft we saw was that NASA was not creating an environment for the conduct of commercial business in space but was still in the role of being a commercial player," she said. "That's not the role of a government agency, and I doubt they'd ever succeed at it."

Rick Tumlinson, the president of the Space Frontier Foundation, was similarly critical of the policy. NASA's job is to "enhance and enable companies to use space, not the other way around," he said. "True commercialization is about industries and businesses operating in space, with the government as one of their customers."

But Stadd maintains that NASA views itself as an "enabler," giving companies a chance to test products in space and, if the tests are successful, allowing commercial space ventures to spin off into their own enterprises.

Other sticking points in the policy involve sponsorship and space tourism. The draft included statements on widening the invitation to entertainers and advertisers looking to do business, but Stadd maintained that the NASA logo would not be offered up to the highest bidder. Space enthusiasts such as Dasch are also hoping that NASA might become more receptive to creating ways for non-astronauts to experience the final frontier.

Even after the policy is released, it will likely be a work in progress, Stadd said. "I've been in the commercial space arena, and I know what it's like to deal with NASA from an outsider-entrepreneurial state," he said. "I'm trying to take that experience--and admittedly, that frustration with bureaucracy--and use that."