US space exploration strategy: Is there a better way?

Despite the importance of space to modern life, the public has lost interest in its most human aspect, exploration. This is because spacefaring nations, and especially the USA, have clung on to outmoded cold war ways of thinking about it. The US attitude of ‘command’ over its international partners will no longer work and we must instead adopt a new, inclusive paradigm in the ‘wiki’ mould. With different countries leading different facets of a global, cooperative endeavour, and contributions reciprocated in ways valuable to all participants (e.g. through access to know-how or capacity building) there is a real possibility of advancing beyond near-Earth orbit. Keeping the ISS open for the training of future long-duration crews would be the first step in a unified human drive to the Moon, involving first a robotic village and then an international base, with Mars an ultimate goal. It the USA were to reorient its thinking towards such a project it would demonstrate true leadership.