NASA missing out on funds without leader

Gannett News Service's Eun Kyung Kim has filed this report:

WASHINGTON - The lack of an official NASA administrator may be hampering the agency from getting its fair share of federal dollars during current budget negotiations, lawmakers said today.

President Barack Obama and his economic advisers are making budget projections that will stretch years down the road, and "NASA needs to be at the table when these decisions are being made," said Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies.

The panel held a hearing to discuss the role NASA science, and other agency programs, play in the overall science enterprise.

Lennard A. Fisk, a former NASA associate administrator, argued that several congressional bills have treated science within NASA as less important than similar programs in other agencies.

As an example, he cited the recently implemented stimulus bill that only singled out Earth science for substantial funding.

"As a practicing space scientist, and someone who throughout much of my career has been concerned with science policy, I can find no logic in the judgment that NASA science is of less importance than other scientific disciplines," said Fisk, now a space science professor at the University of Michigan.

Wolf, the top Republican on the panel, said the current economic crisis will probably prevent NASA from getting the money he said the agency deserves.

The nation's debt continues to grow, and he said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently visited China practically "with a tin cup" in her hand.

But Fisk said that investing in NASA science will have a positive impact on the nation's financial system.

"The technology developed for scientific exploration enhances our other space activities, and finds its way into our economy," he said. "The youth of our nation are inspired by the brilliance of our scientific achievements in space, and encouraged to pursue careers in science and engineering."