Mon, Jun 14, 2004
Presidential Commission To Recommend Major NASA
Streamlining
Yet more changes could be on the way
for America's space agency next week, when the President's
Commission on Implementation of US Space Exploration Policy
delivers its final report to the White House.
Space News reports the commission wants to streamline NASA,
making at least some of the agency's ten field centers into
privately owned, federally funded research facilities like the Jet
Propulsion Lab in California. Although the JPL runs many of NASA's
unmanned missions and receives funding direct from Washington, it's
operated by the California Institute of Technology.
The commission will also reportedly recommend re-establishing a
Space Exploration Steering Council -- sort of like the Space
Council. The last time the Space Council met was during the
administration of former President George HW Bush. Vice President
Dan Quayle was its chairman.
"The commission unanimously endorses this ambitious yet
thoroughly achievable goal of space exploration," the report
summary reads, according to Space.Com. "This will require a steady
commitment from current and future Administrations, Congresses, and
the American people Our journey will require the government to
embrace fundamental changes in its management and
organization."
Other recommendations, according to Space News, include:
- Allowing private industry "to assume the primary role of
providing services to NASA, and most immediately in accessing
low-Earth orbit."
- NASA and Congress work together to create three new
organizations within the space agency: a technical advisory board,
a independent cost estimating organization, and a research and
technology organization that sponsors high risk technology
development efforts.
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