When President Bush announced a plan early this year to send Americans back to the moon —and beyond, to Mars—(1) skeptics wondered whether NASA, with its decades of tread-water budgets and institutional inertia, was up to the job.
Equally important, though, is a companion question: Is the aerospace industry up to the job? (2) Boeing, for one, says it is eager to take up the challenge, and refers to decades of expertise in running enormously complex space ventures.
(3) But the very process that made it the biggest NASA contractor—a sweeping consolidation of the aerospace industry—has sharply reduced competition, and with it, critics say, the creative clash of ideas that helps produce great technological leaps.
(4) Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other companies that contribute to the space program are the stewards of an ailing industry, facing a brain drain as its aging engineers retire, with few newcomers entering the field.
(5) The uncertainty has been underscored recently. Since Bush made his initial announcement, which was greeted with some public skepticism, he has been largely silent on the subject, not even mentioning it in his State of the Union address.
