NASA Creating Office for Missions to the Moon and Beyond
By KENNETH CHANG

Published: January 16, 2004

[A] day after President Bush announced renewed efforts for human
space exploration, NASA announced yesterday that it was creating
an office to develop technologies for missions to the Moon and
beyond.

The announcement, part of a reorganization of the midlevel
bureaucracy, begins what is likely to be a wrenching transition
as the agency tries to fulfill its new mandate.
  
In his speech on Wednesday at NASA headquarters in Washington,
Mr. Bush said the space program would shift its focus from
near-Earth orbit. The new program will divert $11 billion out of
$86 billion in NASA budgets over the next five years. The agency
will also retire the three remaining space shuttles after the
International Space Station is completed, in 2010.

Among the hard decisions for NASA in the next weeks and months is
whether to continue sending the shuttle to maintain and upgrade
the Hubble Space Telescope. The fourth such mission is scheduled
for 2006, which would suffice until the planned retirement of the
telescope in 2010. But some astronomers have been lobbying for
another round of maintenance to extend its lifetime.

With the new mandate, "it seems unlikely that NASA would consider
a fifth servicing mission," Dr. Steven Beckwith, director of the
Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which runs the
telescope, wrote in an e-mail message. 

With the diversion of money toward the exploration program, "it
is entirely possible that they will cancel" the 2006 Hubble
mission, Dr. Beckwith said. Without maintenance, the telescope
would probably end in 2007, he said.

"It would be devastating to optical astronomy and to one of
NASA's most popular programs ever," Dr. Beckwith said. "I hope
that keeping Hubble alive to its planned end of life in 2010 is
part of NASA's new vision."

NASA has not given details of its plans, saying they will have to
await the release of the agency's budget next month.

After the shuttles are grounded in 2010, NASA will not have any
ability to send astronauts to space until a new spacecraft, the
crew exploration vehicle, starts operation in 2014. That will
leave NASA and the other nations participating in the
International Space Station reliant on Russian rockets for
transportation.

At present, Russia is obligated to provide Soyuz capsules until
2006. Congress has barred NASA from paying Russia for
space-station- related services.

Mr. Bush announced a commission of non-NASA experts to be led by
Edward C. Aldridge Jr., a former secretary of the Air Force, that
will make recommendations on how NASA should use the new mandate.
The commission is to report by the end of the summer.

In the reorganization, NASA named a retired Navy rear admiral,
Craig E. Steidle, as associate administrator in charge of the new
Office of Exploration Systems. Among the office's tasks will be
developing the crew exploration vehicle, the craft that is to
carry astronauts back to the Moon by 2020, and Project
Prometheus, which is developing nuclear propulsion systems for
deep space probes.

"The idea," a spokesman for NASA, Michael Braukus, said, "is to
have a better concentration in the technology area and to have an
office specifically dedicated to exploration."

Since retiring in March 2000, Admiral Steidle has been an
aerospace consultant. 

Spacecraft development previously fell under the purview of
NASA's Office of Aerospace Technology. In the reorganization, the
aerospace technology office, renamed the Office of Aeronautics
will focus on cutting-edge aviation technologies.

Dr. J. Victor Lebacqz, who has been acting associate
administrator for the aerospace technology office, is now
associate administrator for the aeronautics office. The
reorganization also added four offices, the chief engineer,
health and medical systems, the chief information officer and
institutional and corporate management.

"We live in a different world than we did just a few years ago,"
Frederick D. Gregory, deputy NASA administrator, said in a
statement. "And our management structure should reflect the
priorities and objectives of our commitments."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company