WASHINGTON, July 17 - Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), chairman of the House Science Committee, called on NASA Monday to open a contract for the "Living with a Star" program to bids.

"Im bothered by NASA seeking to write $600 million checks without following the normal process of opening the contract to competitive bidding," Sensenbrenner said in a statement. "The American people deserve to know that they are getting the most for their money..."

NASA awarded the 12-year contract to Johns Hopkins Universitys Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in February without soliciting bids from other contractors. Under the agreement, APL will provide support services for "Living with a Star".

In a letter to NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, Sensenbrenner said that the space agency should have invited companies to bid on the project before awarding it to a contractor.

Goldin, traveling Monday, had not yet seen the letter and had no immediate comment, a NASA spokesperson said. An APL spokesperson declined comment, referring all inquiries to the space agency. A Johns Hopkins spokesperson did not return a phone call seeking comment.

An investigation by NASAs inspector generals office found that the space agency did not have enough reason to grant a no-bid contract to APL.

"We found that there is insignificant justification for NASAs decision on a sole-source basis to APL. Furthermore, contrary to agency policy, NASA did not perform a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed arrangement," Inspector General Roberta L. Gross wrote in her report.

No-bid contracts are usually awarded in cases where the contract is necessary to maintain an engineering, research or development capability at a nonprofit facility that would not otherwise be available. The inspector general found that that was not the case in the instance of the APL.

A spokesperson for the Goddard Space Flight Center, which is coordinating the "Living with the Stars" project, had not seen Sensenbrenners letter and had no immediate comment.

In his letter to Goldin though, Sensenbrenner says that Goddard director Al Diaz claimed that there was justification for the no-bid contract.

"Living with A Star" is designed to study the suns effects on humanity, but the House of Representatives cut the projects funding from the NASA budget earlier this year. Funding may still be included in Senates version of the budget.