NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin Explains Timing, Purpose Of Big Changes At Agency

Editor's Note: Daniel Goldin, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was named to his $14 billion agency's top post seven months ago, having come from a position as vice president of TRW Inc.'s Space & Technology Group in Redondo Beach, Calif. In October, he initiated a series of major changes in the structure of NASA's space sciences research program. For example, Goldin has separated Mission to Planet Earth, the agency's Earth-observation satellite program, from the rest of the space sciences and created a separate division for this program that reports directly to him. He also has split life and microgravity sciences from other physical sciences and from exploration. Also, Goldin has dismantled the Office of Space Science and Applications, where the bulk of NASA's science programs resided, and moved the highly regarded head of OSSA, Lennard Fisk, to a newly created position as chief scientist for NASA. This new job, in which he functions as an adviser to Goldin, removes Fisk from direct responsibility for science budgets--a fact that alarms some space scientists, since Fisk, an astrophysicist, was a strong advocate of their needs as OSSA chief. Moreover, many space scientists outside of NASA are distressed by the changes, fearing that space and life sciences will have less clout than ever under the new arrangement. Scientists also question the timing of these changes--during the lull between the Bush and Clinton administrations--especially given the uncertainty of whether Goldin will be retained as NASA head under the new administration. In fact, some observers feel that Goldin is "running for office," that is, making a show of action and decisiveness in a bid for visibility with the new administration in order to hang on to his position as head of the space agency. Associate Editor Scott Veggeberg recently met with Goldin in his Washington, D.C., office, where the following interview took place. Q You were appointed to the post of NASA administrator by President Bush at a time when Vice President Quayle was in charge of the National Space Council. This could be viewed as a liability regarding your chances for retaining your position as head of the agency under Bill Clinton. On the other hand, Vice President-elect Al Gore, as a senator, sat on the panel that confirmed your appointment, and he dubbed you a person with "backbone." And you are also a registered Democrat. Given all of this, what kind of a read do you have on whether you will be asked to step down or stay on as NASA administrator under Clinton? A My position is this: (a) I have no read, and (b) President Clinton fought very hard to win this election, and he won it based on change and strengthening the economy and real-ly working the technology issue very, very hard. He has got to decide which people he wants to carry out his programs. I hope he views the space program, independent of the administrator, as crucial to the future of our country. I will do everything humanly possible to support President Clinton in transitioning NASA, and who he chooses to be the administrator is really important to him because he has to have the person that he believes would best carry out his policy. But no matter what happens, I'm going to be supportive of the space program. I think everyone knows who I am and what I am. It's not that I'm a deep, dark secret. And the key to it is what does the new president want, and I will support whatever decision he makes. Q But if you're not sure whether you will be staying or leaving NASA, why choose this time, just after the election and before Clinton takes office, to implement the space science reorganization? A There's never a right time to do a reorganization. And we've got to move forward. Let me give you an analogy. I'm in a room. There's a time bomb in the room, and there's a door here and a door there. You can't stay in the room, but you know if you go over to one of those doors there will be safety and if you go over to the other door there'll be a problem. Just sticking with the status quo does not save science at NASA. The NASA budget has been flat for the last few years; the science research and analysis is just dying on the vine. Right now, the NASA community is at too high a level of comfort and resistant to change. And change is absolutely required because I'm terribly concerned about the basic balance of programs at NASA. Our science program has been suffering. Our missions have taken longer and longer. They're costing more and more money and, as a result, we're not involving a central core of the science community. Q What do you think NASA should be doing to correct the deficiencies in its current exploration program? A What we have to be doing at NASA is not launch a planetary mission every decade, or an astrophysics mission every decade. What NASA ought to be doing is launching a satellite every month. And what we have to do is transition from what I call a state of increasing entropy to a state of stable equilibrium. Under the present structure, the NASA budget was 20 percent for science, and I don't know if that's right or wrong. But let me tell you, with a flat budget the science is getting eaten up by inflation. The research and analysis budget--which is the heart and soul of our support for the university science community--in real terms has been declining over the last years. I've been terribly concerned about that. We also have large programs--like Mission to Planet Earth, with tens of billions of dollars [in their budgets]--that didn't even report to the administrator. There's a fundamental rule of industry that when you have a program above a critical threshold [budgetary] level, you have it report right to the top to get visibility. It's crucial. These are some of the factors that led to the reorganization. Q How will the reorganization make science more of a priority at NASA and involve what you call "the central core" of the science community in correcting problems at NASA? A There needs to be more of a diversity of scientific opinion, and we are working with the scientific community. The objective is to strengthen science to bring it to the focal point and not to have science confined to the Office of Space Science and Applications. I come back to my basic thesis--NASA is science and exploration, not infrastructure and bureaucracy. And I was terribly concerned there wasn't a connectivity of science across the board. There isn't even uniformity of peer review. Q Could you be more specific about how breaking "the scientists" out of their own narrow sector and into other divisions will make NASA a more scientific organization? A In the Office of Space Science and Applications there was a rigorous peer-review process that took place, and as a result people had to be able to stand on their own two feet. But in our commercial office, 94 percent of the commercial payloads for the shuttle were accepted. Do you think that was a [rigorous] peer- review process? There wasn't a uniformity of scientific peer review. If you ran a project through the commercial office, you almost got accepted right off the bat. So again, if all the scientists in NASA are clumped in one portion, and we say, "Okay, we'll give you your 20 percent [of the NASA budget]; now go away and do good science," I'm worried that in the big picture we're not getting good science at NASA. Q Lennard Fisk moved over from head of OSSA, which no longer exists, to this newly created chief scientist position. How is this move going to help the science culture break out of the confines of OSSA? A There's been no ability to reach across NASA and have requirements in science--and not engineering and technology-- dominate what we do. And that's why I've formed the office of the chief scientist. I wanted the administrator in the front office of NASA to have the ability of some of the best scientific minds in the world, and that's why I asked Dr. Len Fisk to come forward. I'm looking upon him as the glue that will cause science to propagate across the NASA programs and not have it just confined to one small area where we throw it a slab of meat called 20 percent of the budget and say, "Go off and do good science." Q Where do you see space science going in terms of number of researchers, of grants, or of jobs? A NASA's not a jobs program for scientists. NASA is science and exploration. NASA is offering the younger generation inspiration and hope. NASA is educating our population. You know, hundreds of years ago, they funded scientists, not as a jobs program, but they funded scientists to understand the heavens. So, NASA does not exist to fund scientists. NASA exists for inspiration and hope and a basic understanding of science. Q You talk a lot about smaller, faster, cheaper space programs, which implies that things have not been small, fast, or cheap enough in the past. Just what is the problem with NASA missions? A Here's the sickness. You have a program and, let's say, it's going to be $4 billion and it's going to get launched in 10 years. You're a scientist, and what you say is, "Aha, I better get an experiment on that spacecraft or I'm not going to fly a planetary program in my career." So everyone puts everything they can on that spacecraft and then the spacecraft gets bigger. Then it needs a bigger launch vehicle. Then it needs more dollars. And because it needs more dollars, it's not just a priority of the laboratory that it's being built at, it's not just a priority of NASA, it's a national priority and prestige item. Then paralysis sets in: "Oh my God, I can't make a mistake." What's the next thing that happens? "Aha, we can't use advanced technology on this, it's too risky." By now, I have a $4 billion program. If I have a failure on that program I can't do it; so what I'll do is take 10-year-old technology that's proven, and I won't take any risks. But what kind of science program doesn't take risks? Now think of the alternate possibility. I launch a small discovery satellite every year. So I lose one. But I'm now on the cutting edge of technology. I'm taking risks; it's a three-year program instead of a two-decade program. Q How could this benefit scientists in the academic environment? A People could earn their Ph.D.'s. They could actually build the spacecraft, get the science, and earn a Ph.D. And I contend that we are out of sync with the university community by having programs that take decades and cost billions. We're now into big politics and jobs for universities, and we're not into funding professors and graduate students. Q You say you're going to launch a spacecraft every couple of months. But isn't the shuttle already doing exactly that? A The shuttle should only be used for missions where humans are required. The shuttle should not be an access vehicle to space, where you don't need humans. You need humans to get up to the space station, and that's what the shuttle is for. The plan when I came here was to have the shuttle fly about 12 or 13 flights a year; we're getting it down to six. And we're going to take some of that money we're saving and put it into science. Q Space station Freedom comes under attack by Congress now and again, principally because of its high price tag. What's the current state of your support for this laboratory in space? A Unwavering. Let me tell you something. We as a human species should be not so arrogant as to think we're not going to be living and working in space. Near-earth asteroids have tremendous potential. It takes less energy to get to a near-earth asteroid than the moon. Planet Mars had tectonic activity, volcanic activity, copious quantities of flowing surface water. There's a strong possibility that we have concentrated mineral resources on Mars. So we have got to press forward, and we have to understand the effect of zero gravity. We are going to be building the first international laboratory in space that could give us an opportunity to study human physiology, cell physiology, to study life sciences and biotechnology in zero gravity and do a comparative analysis with one G [the gravitational force at the Earth's surface]. Now it's not going to cure world hunger. It's not going to cure cancer. And people have mistakenly said that. What it's going to do is lead to the storehouse of scientific knowledge and on the space station, which is big science, we're going to have hundreds and thousands of small-science experiments.

NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin Explains Timing, Purpose Of Big Changes At Agency

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January 1993

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