President Bush’s proposal of a huge manned flight space program, featuring a return to the moon, has the earmarks of a new spectacular generated by NASA to reawaken public enthusiasm and appropriations support from Congress. This is altogether premature and bypasses several fundamental questions that first need to be settled in a searching and objective fashion.

Among these questions are: What are desirable space goals for the United States? What are their benefits and costs? What are the best instruments with which to achieve them?

In such an analysis NASA should not be the principal investigator. It has too many conflicts of interest, too firm a bias toward the glamour and public relations of mammoth manned flight programs, too shaky a claim on public confidence after two shuttle disasters and the hollowing out of its safety culture. The questions that need answers are too fundamental to be answered by an implementing agency.

The National Academy of Sciences would appear to be the appropriate agency for such studies, by reason of its skills, reputation and detachment. Certainly one issue is whether NASA itself is not to some degree obsolete and its management badly in need of restructuring and new leadership.

Another question fundamental to any new space program is: When will the fiscal circumstances of this country be compatible with major new investment in space? Certainly the near-to-middle, deficit-ridden future won’t be conducive to our best effort. This question needs to be insulated from political judgment so far as practicable, if looming deficits are any indication of what we may expect of political judgment. Perhaps the General Accounting Office would be a good place to start.

Once these questions are answered, at least conditionally, there will be issues of technology to address. Are goals of scientific discovery best met by unmanned robotic spacecraft, requiring far smaller launch vehicles, far fewer dollars and far lower risks than manned missions?

It’s ironic that after extensive recent press coverage of the amazing feats of robotic spacecraft — Pioneer, Galileo, and now Mars rover — the weight of the White House comes down in favor of a blockbuster and budgetbuster manned program. But if the National Academy of Sciences should find persuasive benefits in particular manned flight projects, implementing the hardware development will be the next step. Experience with the shuttle teaches that simplicity and safety of design, economy of reuse and a responsive and simple contractor structure should be built in.

One benefit of deliberation in decision-making about the ends and means of the space program, besides waiting for a more favorable fiscal opportunity, is that materials for resisting stress and the heat of spacecraft re-entry are more apt to be available after 10 or 12 years than after four or five. This is one of the most critical issues in space technology, and haste will cause us to forgo badly needed opportunities.

In short, the president’s announcement forecloses the most important issues that need objective study and public scrutiny, insulated from NASA. These issues are far too important to be assumed away in the White House’s off-the-cuff decision.

David C. Acheson was a member of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident in 1986.