The current debate over U.S. civil space policy makes for fascinating reading, but recurring political chaos about the nation’s space exploration goals benefits no one. Leaving aside for a moment the merits of President Barack Obama’s proposal to redefine the human spaceflight program of NASA, we as a nation should ask: How should our country best make such judgments and, perhaps more important, how can we establish a process that would avoid the kind of instability we are experiencing and lead to better results?