Political Sustainability in Space Exploration: A Game Theoretic Approach

Abstract

The swiftly changing nature of the policy environment introduces significant uncertainty into the design of those technical systems that rely on public resources. Politics, the process through which stakeholders possessing different values and interests interact, necessarily impacts technical design as requirements change to suit different needs. Simple gametheoretic models may be used to provide insights into resource allocation dynamics between NASA and the U.S. Congress. This paper utilizes game theory, with a particular emphasis on Brams’ Theory of Moves, to model the process by which stakeholders within NASA and the U.S. Congress may cooperate or compete to arrive at an affordable and politically sustainable funding level on a yearly basis. In doing so, this paper advances a game-theoretic definition of political sustainability.

Publication
AIAA Space 2005