Achieving NASA's Moon Mission with a Program of Public Education and Industry Partnership
- Paper number
IAC-06-E1.P.3.02
- Author
Mr. Miguel Daal, U.C. Berkeley, United States
- Coauthor
Mr. Yuki Takahashi, University of California, United States
- Year
2006
- Abstract
We present the findings of our study on how to increase public support for the Moon Program component of NASA's recently redefined mission. In brief, this mission is to return to the Moon by 2020 transported by a "Crew Exploration Vehicle". The Moon Mission represents a first step in the broader Moon-Mars Mission, which is why we have chosen to focus on it. We identify three major components of public support that are deficient for the moon program. These are lack of public interest, insufficient funding and lack of priority in the scientific community. Our investigation asks how much of the necessary public support could possibly be generated by a public education program as well as a government industry partnership (with space tourism, for example).Indicators are used to connect the effect of the programs we consider to changes in public support. On the question of public interest, we use prevalence in the media as our indicator. On the question of funding, we use budgetary projections as our indicator. On the question of scientific priority, we look at how consensus might be reached. The essential elements of a successful Education and Industry partnership program will be sketched as the result of our research. From this, our paper concludes with recommendations for NASA.
- Abstract document