International Space Agency...

There are public thoughts about future international cooperations in space exploration. A permanent lunar station seems to require international participation, the ISS is internationally worked on, there seems to be a talk about international missions to the jovian moons and the outer planets and the Cassini-Huygens-mission is international.

This might grow to a sufficient amount to require an international space agency.

What should it be organized and structure like then? Like ESA with its Council of Ministers? Or more like the UN and their sub-agencies like UNESCO, UNICEF etc. - UNSA (UN Space Agency) ? What about any innovative structure and organization?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

There *is* an International Space Agency ISA (with some paranoid opinions)

So that name is not usable When you look at the UN inefficiency, I don't think it's a good idea to go for such an institution. The smaller the deciders' committee, the faster and cheaper the whole stuff (just look at SpaceX or Scaled Composites where a few people decide without a zillion conferences, meetings, politics etc).

Hello, Klaus,

of course I meant the term international space agency generally.

If it were UNESCO-like then the problems known from the UN or ESA would occur because it would be like NASA and just get a yearly budget.

If it were ESA-like interest-balancing would occur which already elsewhere has been said to be hindering.

If it were UN-like a kind of parliament would do all the decisions.

But what innovative structures and organization-forms may be thinkable?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

In theory it would be a good idea--if everybody could get along.

One nation would build HLLVs, another nation standard LVs.

One nation would do spaceplanes, another probes, and another nation would do....


This way duplication of effort is avoided.

Sadly we all wind up producing the same capabilities--with many nations having Titan IV capability---and no more.

Europe=Ariane V
Russia CIS=Proton/Angara
USA=EELV
China=LM-5
India=GSLV-next

sigh...

If there was to be a sort of international space agency, It should essentially ignore ties to any country.

It should operate on it's own. None of this "American node", "Japanese module" stuff like on the ISS. (Which is merely international cooperation. This is a good first step though)

The "ISA" would need to be free from any ties to any country or organization. I picture the end result something like this:

NASA, ESA and other space agencies are disbanded. All efforts go towards the new ISA. Govenments would play no part in the ISA other than financial contributions.

This would then leave the doors wide open for private commercial spaceflight to thrive in a "NASAless" enviroment.

ISA and private companies would develop a cooperative relationship. ISA would demonstrate and develop new technologies that could be bought by private companies (ISA needs to be funded somehow). The ISA would also need to be recognized by governments as the source of "Space Law", rules and regulations on space travel, safety and standards.
Ultimately, competition between the private companies would drive space exploration and technologies forward the most, leaving the ISA to be a simple space regulation committee.

I always thought that an "international space agency" would need to ignore political boundaries and operate free from national governments. (i.e. Instead of countries cooperating together, scientists from various countries work together separate from national ties).

One problem with international space projects is that each member of the coalition has its own separate interests. That means that strings are being pulled in different directions at the same time, which makes the whole process very inefficient. This happens all the time when nations get together to do something. A case in point is the F-35 Fighter plane. It was planned in the 90's, but now nations that originally planned to buy the fighter are thinking again. Less fighters built mean a higher cost per unit, and that leads more countries to consider buying a different aircraft or buying less of that aircraft. In addition, the F-35 is not as specialized for each individual country's purposes as it would be if each individual country built their own fighter aircraft.
In general, government is terribly inefficient, and an international agency, a "government of governments" would be even more so. There has to be a good reason for governments to do joint ventures.