Ed Weiler, the salty, straight-talking astrophysicist who left NASA headquarters in 2004 to take the helm of the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center, is returning to Washington to replace NASA science chief Alan Stern, an equally straight-talking scientist who abruptly resigned March 25 after less than a year on the job.

Weiler, who was named earlier today, is no stranger to the demands of the new job he will assume in April. The 30-year NASA veteran served as associate administrator for space science from 1998 to 2004.

Weiler met with Goddard employees during an all-hands meeting at the Greenbelt, Md.-based field center March 26 to discuss the sudden change and to reassure them that they would be in good hands with his deputy, Richard Obsenschain, taking over as interim director and Laurie Leshin moving up to the deputy director position.

March 26 after the all-hands meeting, Weiler talked to Space News staff writer Brian Berger about the leadership transition ahead for NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD).

What did you tell Goddard employees this morning?

I told them [NASA Administrator] Mike Griffin and [NASA Associate Administrator] Chris Scolese talked to me late yesterday and informed me that Alan was planning to resign and that they discussed it and would like me to come back to headquarters as the interim AA to keep the ship running.

How long do you think you will be at NASA headquarters?

That's totally up to Mike and Chris and me. I've got to get the lay of the land. I haven't been at headquarters now for four years. I certainly know the status of Goddard projects but I've got to get up to speed on JPL and Ames projects, etc. It's going to take a while for that. It's going to take me a while to meet the new team because only about half the team that I left is still there.

One of Stern's signature initiatives was restructuring the Mars exploration program to free up money for a multi-billion dollar sample return mission in the 2018 to 2020 timeframe. The big question today is whether that push for Mars sample return mission will continue under you?

I'm not going to make any decisions without any information. When I left the SMD we had a program in place of taking advantage of every [Mars launch] opportunity and someday when, we have the data we needed and all the science we needed, we'd spend the billions of dollars for a Mars sample return.

There are several things I need to understand and [figuring them out] is one of the top priorities on my list. What is the real cost of Mars sample return? Does the community want to pay that cost in terms of the missions that could be done in the interim or not done? So I intend to work with the community -- the broadest possible science community -- to find out what their real priorities are. But to make those kinds of decisions I want the community to have the full knowledge of what a real mission would cost and how it would impact the budget, etc. and I don't have any of that information right now. You probably know more than I do.

Two other priorities under Stern were restoring cuts to NASA's research and analysis budget and reinvigorating the suborbital science program. Where do you stand on those issues?

I think Alan is absolutely on target. I think one of the best things Alan Stern did was reinvigorate the suborbital program -- the rockets and balloons. If we are going to train another generation of [principal investigators], the place to do it is rockets [and] balloons. I started out at NASA 30 years ago managing a small grants program for astronomy rockets. It's in my blood, too, and I applaud Alan for what he's done in that area.

On R&A, there were deep cuts after I left. Now there are large increases. What I have to understand is how much were the cuts and how much were the increases ... I believe there has to be a delicate balance between grants and science missions because we are the space agency and our job is to launch rockets. I want to be sure there's a good balance. It would be out of balance if there's too much money going to grants and not enough money going to missions. It would be out of balance if all we did was hardware and never paid for the science. I cannot say it's good or bad now. All I can say from my post here 17 miles north is I have no idea what the status is right now, how much the cuts were, how much the increases were. That's sort of out of my bailiwick. But obviously it's something I've got to look at closely.

As part of reinvigorating the suborbital efforts, the Science Mission Directorate just issued a request for information from companies such as Virgin Galactic and Xcor Aerospace about flying researchers and their experiments on piloted suborbital spacecraft. Does that initiative continue under you?

I know nothing about this. Believe me, Brian, I've had 18 hours to think about this [job] and that was not one of the things on my list I was thinking about last night because I had a hundred other things.

Does the sudden leadership change at SMD have anything to do with this week's budget fight over the Mars rovers?

That's the kind of question that only Alan Stern, Mike Griffin or Chris Scolese can answer. I don't travel in those circles.

The Mars community is up in arms over proposed cuts to their budget. What's your assessment of the situation you will soon find yourself in as science chief?

I can't give you definitive answers. I can give you my philosophy that I tried to follow when I was the AA. Somebody asked me the same exact question at my all-hands. NASA's got all these budget problems on the science missions. Well, believe it or not, during the six years I was AA we had a lot of budget problems too. As I liked to remind reporters and members of Congress then, these science missions are not the one millionth copy of a Toyota. Everyone is absolutely unique and you can't predict the cost of these things in pre-phase A when all you are working with is PowerPoint engineering. You don't really get to the true cost of missions like this until you get to the preliminary design review or even later. And sometimes people underestimate the difficulty of these things. It's human nature. On the other hand if programs get out of control and I suspect they weren't going to be able to get back within control, I have a clear record as the associate administrator for six years. I canceled five programs. I'm capable of doing that again. On the other hand I'm also going to make sure that programs aren't nickel and dimed just to save a few cents, because I have direct personal experience where cost was the only concern. And that was Mars '98. Do you remember that little baby? And what I got for good cost control on that program was two craters on Mars. You've got to balance good engineering with good cost control. That's my philosophy. I'm not saying that isn't somebody else's philosophy, I'm just saying that's my philosophy. I'm not a stranger to cost problems. But I do believe this: the best way to sell new programs to Congress and the American people is to deliver what you said you would deliver on the highest priority programs that are under development now.

Stern established new minimum experience criteria for principal investigators proposing space missions. Will you preserve that policy?

You must have been at my all-hands. I was asked about that there. So now I've had at least three more minutes to think about it. I've had 33 years [of] involvement at NASA and I've kind of learned that there are no absolutes in this world. I kind of see the world as gray, not necessarily black and white. Now, given a choice of having an experienced PI versus an inexperienced PI, of course I'd rather have an experienced PI. However ... I also have enough experience managing many, many, many missions where sometimes I had a weak PI but I had a really strong project manager ... you've got to look at the team of people. It's not just the PI. It's the PI, it's the project manager, it's the system engineer, it's the institution behind the PI. So you've got to ask the question, 'is it only the PI's qualifications or do I have to take other factors into account?' I'm not saying I would overturn what Alan has put in place. In general, it's a good philosophy. Is it an absolute philosophy? I will have to think about it.

When is your first opportunity to meet with the science community in your new role?

Hopefully I'm going to get a lot of them to travel to Washington because I've got a lot of work to do at headquarters to get my team together, to get morale to a really good ... I really think getting my team together and working the same agenda is the highest priority I have in the first few months. So I don't see myself traveling very much in the first few months, but I want to invite a lot of the key scientists, chairpersons of the committees and things like that, to Washington. I know all these people. I used to work with them intimately, so it's not as though it's going to be a first meeting. But I want to get a broad perspective not just from the sample community for instance but from the people who worry about Mars atmosphere, the people who worry about Mars geology, etc. I want to know exactly what all of those people think.

You mention getting your team together. Should we be expecting new science division chiefs soon?

First of all, in the government you don't make changes too easily. Keep in mind that a lot of people who are there now are people who were there when I left. So I have some real core, good people there. Chuck Gay is the deputy AA. Chuck used to work for me here at Goddard and worked for me when I ran [the Office of Space Science].

How soon will you be reporting for work at headquarters?

That depends on what Mike and Chris tell me to do. I have a feeling it will be two to four weeks depending on Alan's plans.