WASHINGTON (States News Service) -- House Science Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, (R-Wisconsin). enjoys a reputation as NASA's toughest critic in Congress. He says he's merely trying to make smart use of the taxpayers' money. Here's what he told SPACE.com about NASA, Congress and the future of the space program.
SPACE.com: What do you think of NASA under Dan Goldin? Do you get along with him personally?
Sensenbrenner: My relationship with the administrator is kind of a sweet and sour relationship. My whole philosophy is that Congress should do vigorous oversight but should not over-manage an agency. We've had problems with past committees becoming a super-NASA administrator. To [Goldin's] credit, I think he's done a very good job in focusing the agency on programs in a period of declining budgets. I think he's done a generally overall good job to prevent NASA from over-promising what it can deliver. He refers to it as "faster, better cheaper." Overall he has done a fairly good job of re-focusing the agency in a way that did not result in the cancellation of a single program or the closure of a single center.
SPACE.com: NASA is overhauling its program to explore Mars. What do you think should be done?
Sensenbrenner: Mars has been singularly inhospitable to human exploration. I am committed to going on to Mars. I think that that's the next frontier of space exploration. I think we have to figure out how to do it in a way that produces results. I don't think anyone knows how to get from here to there. What I have said is that we are going to review the workings of "faster, better, cheaper" to see where the failures are.
SPACE.com: A recent report to NASA from a panel investigating the Mars failures recommends that the agency adopt a philosophy of "Mission Success First." What do you think of that?
Sensenbrenner: Of course we want the missions to succeed! There's no going back to the old NASA -- that's a given. Congress will not fund going back to these billion-dollar projects that have got everything but the kitchen sink in them...I'm happy that there are increases [in the budget] spread out over five years...There's got to be a long-term ramp-up in the commitment to funding. I salute the administration for doing that.
SPACE.com: How should the next administration approach its space policy?
Sensenbrenner: I think the overall goal should have NASA concentrate on cutting-edge research rather than using a huge amount of its budget on operations. [And also] to use the public's money to build a prototype for a reusable launch vehicle -- a replacement for the shuttle. What I'm saying here is that public money should be used for high-risk research where it is imprudent for the private sector because of the risk to put their own money into it. Once it is successful, the private sector should commercialize it and make as much money as possible from that. I have not seen a real eagerness [from the Clinton administration] to work in-synch with [the] American commercial launch industry, which I think is essential to the development of a healthy public-private partnership.
SPACE.com: What was NASA's most successful mission?
Sensenbrenner: The Apollo program. The most successful in the near term was the Mars Pathfinder program.
SPACE.com: Do you read space books or watch space movies in your free time? Have you seen Mission to Mars?
Sensenbrenner: I go to movies when my kids want to go, but I haven't seen Mission to Mars. I read 19th- and 20th-century history books. That's my airplane reading.
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