A methodology to determine the sociopolitical forces influencing lunar development policies

The rate of progress in any particular program is primarily dependent on the annual resources committed for the specific program. Soon after the turn of the century, the question of returning to the Moon will probably be raised again among political decision makers. At that time the positive and negative arguments will have to be weighed again. A simple method to analyse the relevant force-field was developed comprising the following steps: (1) Definition of positive and negative forces; (2) cross-impact analysis between the individual forces producing relative weights; (3) probability analysis of the current relevance of the individual forces; (4) estimating resulting negative and positive partial force-fields as functions for selected years between 1960 and 2030; and (5) determination of the strength of the resulting force influencing a decision. An example is presented.