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.

FMI: www.moontomars.org