Send It Somewhere Special

This leaves a lander. A lunar lander substantially larger than the spidery Apollo-era LEMs is currently on the drawing board. It's not nearly as far along in development as the Ares booster and Orion spacecraft components of the Constellation program -- which is a good thing. While I question the need to return to the moon in the first place, I wouldn't exclude it as a possible destination, so I think we should modify the lander's design to make it capable of touching down on either the moon or Mars and then returning to the ISS with samples for study in its laboratories. Such landers could also investigate the moon's poles, where we think water may be present, or one of the near-Earth asteroids -- which may have raw materials suitable for use by future generations of space explorers.

But, our skeptics will sputter, this will all cost far more money than the Constellation program. Who'll pay for it?

Actually, it will in effect save all the money we've already spent on the ISS. And the station is already an international project, with substantial financial and technological input from the Russians, Canadians, Europeans and Japanese. In recent years, the Chinese, who have developed their own human spaceflight capabilities, have made repeated overtures to NASA, hoping to be let in on the ISS project. They've been unceremoniously rebuffed by the Bush administration, but a new administration may be more welcoming. An interplanetary ISS -- the acronym now standing for International Space Ship -- would be a truly international endeavor, with expenses shared among all participating nations.

How likely is any of this to happen? Not very. A lot depends on the flexibility of a NASA that hasn't always been particularly welcoming to outside ideas. On the other hand, the agency also collaborates with outsiders all the time. So it's not impossible. The reason the ISS went from being a purely American, Reagan-era project ("Space Station Freedom") to one including the Russians and many other nations was a political decision by the Clinton administration. A similar political vision will be necessary here.

All the billions already spent on the space station would pay off -- spectacularly -- if this product of human ingenuity actually went somewhere and did something. But it would also serve as a compelling demonstration that we're one species, living on one planet, and that we're as capable of cooperating peacefully as we are at competing militaristically. Let's begin the process of turning the ISS from an Earth-orbiting caterpillar into an interplanetary butterfly.

michael.benson@pristop.si

Michael Benson, the author of "Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes," writes frequently on space science issues.