Why space exploration should be a global project

Apollo should not serve as a model for the many programs for lunar and planetary exploration currently making headway: it was a unilateral effort whose generous budget would be inconceivable today. Yet President Kennedy was an advocate of cooperation in major space missions, an attitude that makes perfect sense today, when so many agencies have ambitious exploration plans. The importance of President G.W. Bush's ‘Vision for Space Exploration’, by providing a focus for NASA and others, has been underestimated. It should give us a chance to find out whether a long-term objective of moving humans off the home planet is really feasible—surely the point of exploration.