The Bloomberg news service reported today that "President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China." (Full story here).

While the need to have a US Government launch capability available asap after the space shuttle is retired in late 2010 is understandable, is it necessary or wise to remove the walls separating US civil and military space programs?

United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, builds the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets that are being considered for the necessary man-rating modifications because they would be available well before NASA's under-development Ares 1 is expected to fly in 2015. If the Obama Administration cancels Ares 1 and moves forward with the Delta and Atlas rockets, several questions need to be considered:

• Is it necessary, and to what extent, to tear down the barriers between the US civil and military space programs? These barriers have made it possible for the US to publicly showcase NASA's manned space program accomplishments while maintaining secrecy about military space efforts. If civil and military programs are merged, the US will lose an important public relations tool.
• Will the removal of these barriers make it easier or more difficult for cooperative efforts between NASA and the national space agencies of Europe, Japan, India, Russia, and other nations? Will it impede space cooperation between the Pentagon and our allies?
• NASA can buy launches from the United Launch Alliance, and probably from Orbital Sciences Corp. (OSC) and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) beginning in 2010; does NASA acting as a customer require tearing down the civil-military barriers?
• NASA and Pentagon development and operations cultures are very different. Will they be able to work together effectively and efficiently, or will new problems and delays be the result of closer collaboration? How well will their different needs be managed, and who will make the decisions?
• A potential lunar race (I am not convinced that this is necessary) with China is described as one reason for haste. If it must be a race, then let it be pursued more wisely than the US-USSR race that led to the triumph of Apollo and an unsustainable Earth-orbit-Moon transportation infrastructure. I am heartened by NASA's December 23, 2008 announcement that it will order twelve space station resupply flights from SpaceX for $1.6 billion, and eight flights from OSC for $1.9 billion. These awards are part of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) support for the NewSpace industry. If NASA and the Pentagon combine their efforts, will the Pentagon's need for quick-response, low-cost launches lead to greater support for the NewSpace industry... or greater support for tighter military control over all US launches, commercial or government? If the latter, how will this impact the ability of US NewSpace companies to compete with foreign launch providers?

If tighter NASA-Pentagon integration is seen as a quick fix to a real problem, don't forget the long-term implications.