NASA's 2007 Budget

IRA FLATOW, host:

From NPR News in New York, this is TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Did you see that spectacular picture of that hot geyser on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons? Well, it may be the last one you see for a long time. Because money to send space probes to the planets, study dark energy and matter, and search for life in our solar system has been drastically cut to pay for other big ticket items at NASA like the space shuttle, the space station, and the shuttle's replacement. This hour we'll take a look at NASA's 2007 budget. What's left for space science after the agency pays for its astronaut programs? But the discovery of genes that suggest that human evolution might still be going on. It's all coming up after this break. Stay with us.

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This is TALK OF THE NATION Science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. Space scientists are both excited and a bit disappointed today. First the good news. The Cassini spacecraft has sent back new spectacular pictures of one of Saturns moons. Maybe you've seen them in the morning paper. What appears to be a hot geyser in the moon Enceladus, spewing out water like Old Faithful. If you're a regular listener to this program, you first heard about that on Science Friday last December.

The other cosmic event is happening even as we speak. The Mars reconnaissance orbiter is slated to arrive at Mars today. It will go into orbit around the planet taking detailed pictures of its surface over the next few years. The idea is that future landing sites for exploration will be chosen from these pictures. That's the good news.

The bad news is that future missions to Mars and to other planets and their moons could be scrapped. Instead of going for space science, the money might instead go for astronaut missions. Just six months ago NASA head Michael Griffin told Congress that, quote, "not one thin dime," would be taken from space science programs to pay for these exploration plans. Then last month he reversed himself. The space agency's 2007 budget included cuts of three billion dollars to space science programs. The money saved is being earmarked to cover costs of the international space station and to pay for at least sixteen space shuttle missions needed to complete the station.

I wish we hadn't had to do it. I didn't want to, Griffin said. This hour we're going to take a look at NASA's budget and talk about the agency's spending priorities. And if you'd like to join our discussion, give us a call. Our number is 1-800-989-8255. That's 1-800-989-TALK. And as always you can surf over to our website at sciencefriday.com. Let me introduce my guests. Frank Morring is the senior space technology editor at Aviation Week and Space Technology in Washington. He joins us from his office there. Welcome back to the program.

Mr. FRANK MORRING (Senior Space Technology Editor, Aviation Week and Space Technology): Thank you.

FLATOW: You're welcome. Wes Huntress, Jr., was the associate administrator for space science at NASA from 1992 to 1998. He's now the director of the Geophysical Lab at the Carnegie Institute of Washington, in Washington. He joins us today from JPL in Pasadena. Welcome to the program Dr. Huntress.

Dr. WESLEY HUNTRESS JR (director, Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C.): Thank you. Delighted to be here.

FLATOW: Let's talk about the budget first. Frank, overall the budget is a little bigger than it was the year before, right?

Dr. MORRING: It's actually pretty where they were expecting it to be. Slightly larger than in their request for 2006.

FLATOW: Would it be fair to say that in the current budgets, though, that NASA's exploration programs come out way ahead of the space science programs?

Dr. MORRING: Yes, to the extent that the space science program is cut, they certainly do. They're tracking pretty, exploration is tracking pretty steadily too. But science, of course, does take the big hit.

FLATOW: Are these hits a surprise?

Dr. MORRING: I think they're, something was going to have to get hit. The agency was running about a three to five billion dollar overrun on the space shuttle program and I think some people were afraid or thought that the shuttle and space station program was going to take the hit instead of science. It looks like science paid the bill.

FLATOW: And, do we know, in particular, what, which part of the science program is going to take the hit?

Dr. MORRING: Mostly, just looking at the big numbers, it looks like its mostly solar system exploration. They take, you can pretty much track about a billion dollars a year across that, across those accounts for the next three years after '07.

FLATOW: Dr. Huntress, you're at JPL today for the Mars reconnaissance orbiter, which is scheduled to go into orbit. I could count, first let me ask you, is there any update on how successful that has, the firings have gone yet?

Dr. HUNTRESS: Well, so far so good. The key events will happen shortly after twelve here, local time, when they start pressurizing the propulsion system. But we're getting very close and ironically, you know, it's a mission to Mars, and most of the cuts in the next five years, in fact, are coming from the Mars program.

FLATOW: Such as? Can you give us an idea?

Dr. HUNTRESS: Well, what's happened is that they've removed enough from the budget that we'll only be able to send one mission per opportunity, every 26 months, when the planets line themselves up properly. So for example, the next time we send rovers to the surface we'll only be able to send one instead of two like we did last time. So it's a fairly significant cut. They've removed a lot of the missions in the out years, and so it's going to be a much leaner program.

FLATOW: I'd heard that one of the missions cut was the Mars sample return mission. Is that correct?

Dr. HUNTRESS: Mars sample return has been a long term goal for the Mars exploration program. It's not easy to do, it's a fairly expensive mission, but with this kind of slash in the Mars program, its pretty much off the table.

FLATOW: Because we used to talk about that a lot. That was always one of the main dreams of space scientists was to bring a sample back from Mars.

Dr. HUNTRESS: Well, of course. And we just brought samples back from a comet, and we're finding out fantastic things about comets. The reasons for bringing samples back, of course, is that we can, they can use them in laboratory instruments that are so big and massive, that we can't fly them. And so, that'll be a big disappointment.

FLATOW: Hm. Frank Morring, in terms of real dollars, in full number of dollars, it doesn't seem like it's a really a whole lot of money for a full budget that's being cut out of the NASA budget.

Dr. MORRING: How do you mean being cut?

FLATOW: Well, that's being shifted around.

Dr. MORRING: Oh, you, well, it's about three billion dollars over five years that's coming out of science, as you said. You know, like they say, that's a billion here and a billion there. That's real money.

FLATOW: Does Congress, and we'll be talking to Congressman Boehlert later, but does Congress have the ability to restore any of this money that might go to these science programs?

Dr. MORRING: Absolutely. Congress, this is, the numbers we're talking about are budget requests for fiscal '07 from the White House, and Congress can change those numbers around any way they want to. And in fact, there's been some suggestion from Congressman Boehlert and others that they may well do that, and particularly in the science area.

FLATOW: And what was lacking? Was there a shortfall that required you to, them to shift the money out of the science program into the astronaut program?

Dr. MORRING: Well, I think it really goes back to the Columbia accident. It's taken them longer than they expected, and more money than they expected, to get the shuttle flying again. And it's pretty much a direct transfer from science to shuttle.

FLATOW: Wes Huntress, you used to be at NASA. Is it realistic to expect the agency to develop these new programs without a substantial budget increase?

Dr. HUNTRESS: Well, if you're talking about the science programs, what's really been damaged here is the future, you know, our current operating programs, you know, will survive this. The ones that are near to launch will survive this. But, in several years, the bottom will begin dropping out, because what's been sacrificed here is the science and the technology that's going to be required to enable missions in the future. So the flight rate will drop off precipitously and we'll lose the scientists and the technical expertise to do these missions in the future.

FLATOW: Frank, the shuttle missions are important because that's how the international space station is going to be built. And until that happens, NASA can't go back to the moon or to Mars. That's NASA's reasoning, isn't it?

Dr. MORRING: That's right. The program they're following right now, which was set by President Bush a couple of years ago, starts with finishing the space station and then retiring the space shuttle in 2010. And they've just recently held a meeting of the heads of agencies of all the space station partners, who were very concerned that their hardware, most of which is still down at Kennedy Space Center, waiting for a shuttle launch, they were worried that their hardware might not get launched.

FLATOW: And so we're talking about, what, more than a dozen shuttle launches that will need to happen to finish the space station?

Dr. HUNTRESS: The plan that they came up with last week, actually, was 16 flights to the, at least 16 flights to the space station.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Dr. HUNTRESS: Plus, possibly one more flight to do a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Dr. Morring, Dr. Huntress, so essentially what NASA is doing is paying for the space shuttle with the science budget.

Dr. MORRING: Well, exactly, and everyone understands that. But the whole issue is, is that if we're going to meet those commitments to our partners for the international space station. That means we have to fly the shuttle, because that's the only vehicle capable of launching their modules. And going into this budget, we knew that the shuttle was $3 to $5 billion short. But the administration didn't put that money into NASA's budget. And so the administrator was placed between a rock and a hard place. And so do you go-as- you-pay in human exploration program and take it from that, or do you take it from the only place left in science that, you know, hasn't been cannibalized over the last couple of years, and that's science.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Dr. MORRING: And his choice was to take it out of science.

FLATOW: I'm trying to understand how Administrator Griffin could have turned around so quickly in a period of a month or two, Frank. Didn't he say last fall that the agency would not take one thin dime from the science program to pay for the human space flight program?

Dr. MORRING: Yes, he certainly did. I don't know how he could make that change, although he was certainly candid about it when he did.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Dr. MORRING: He brought the budget briefing to a dead stop when he said, you know, that's the way it was, and this is the way it is now. Maybe he thought he was going to get more money this time, and he didn't' get it. I just don't know.

FLATOW: Doesn't that imply that he's sort of out of the loop in the whole budgetary process?

Dr. MORRING: Well, I don't know about that either, because there was a lot of talk about actually cutting NASA's budget.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Dr. MORRING: And they did hold steady with the five year plan from last year. So, at a time when, you know, there's a lot of demands on the budget, for example, the war in Iraq, he was able to hold his own, anyway. I think most federal agencies did get some cuts this year, if not draconian cuts.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. So, this is a one-time cut, or is it going to be over the course of many years?

Dr. MORRING: Well, it's over the five year budget run out, which runs through 2011. He says this is a one time speed bump, is the word he used, to pay for the shuttle, to pay to get the shuttle retired. They're starting, as you know, to build the new human launch vehicle that's based on the shuttle. There are indications that that will be a much smaller program, in terms of money, than the shuttle program has been.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Dr. MORRING: As soon as this is paid for, this issues goes away.

FLATOW: Frank, I want to thank you for taking time to be with us today.

Dr. MORRING: Well, you're very welcome.

FLATOW: Frank Morring, senior space technology editor at Aviation Week and Space Technology. We're going to take a break, come back, and talk lots more about the budget. Mary Cleave of NASA is joining us, former astronaut, and now she's associate administrator for science in Washington. So stay with us, we'll be right back after this short break. I'm Ira Flatow and this is TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR News.

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FLATOW: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking this hour about NASA's new budget, with my guests Wes Huntress, associate administrator for space science at NASA from 1992 to 1998. He's now the director of Geophysical Lab, at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in Washington D.C. Joining us now also is Mary Cleave, NASA's associate administrator for Science in Washington. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

MARY CLEAVE (Associate Administrator for Science, NASA): Thank you.

FLATOW: Have you been hearing it from scientists about these proposed cuts to the space science program?

Ms. CLEAVE: Yes, we've gotten good input from the science community. There is a lot of concern about the changes to the R&A budget. There's concern about, in particular, on the small competed space craft lines. But then we've also been getting letters and e-mails and support of the flagship missions too. So, we're getting a lot of varied comments from people.

FLATOW: Now, there are a lot of people that would say that the flag ship mission of NASA is the Hubble Space Telescope and things that are very visible. You hardly ever see anything about the space station, but the space telescope, and other missions like the kind we see today from Cassini, get front-page headlines.

Ms. CLEAVE: Well, we actually have flag ship missions in each one of our divisions. And it's just a description for us that we use that means it's a bigger mission. Or, you know, we also have medium size missions, and smaller missions, so...

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Ms. CLEAVE: So, that's what I mean by flag ship.

FLATOW: I understand. Do you think pictures, like we see today of the Cassini Mission, might change some people's minds at NASA about maybe we should put more money back into the science division?

Ms. CLEAVE: Well, I think our administrator, Mike Griffin, has made it very clear that he really did not want to remove the growth out of science. He had to because they found quite a bit of extra cost in the space shuttle program that needed to be covered.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Ms. CLEAVE: And so, that's why he was forced to take growth out of the science budget.

FLATOW: So, he could not go back and say to Congress, or the president, you know, I promised last month I wouldn't cut this budget, but now maybe you can give me a few billion dollars more to cover the shortfall, so I don't have to break my promise.

Ms. CLEAVE: Well, he supports the president's budget, the way this works, he would come out, he's in support of the president's budget, as we all are in the executive branch.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Ms. CLEAVE: Because the president is our boss. And now this president has proposed this budget, it goes to Congress so they can decide what they want to do with the president's proposal.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. No one can stand up on principal and say, you know, I don't think the budget should be cut, I'm willing to resign over this.

Ms. CLEAVE: Well, it's, since our budget had growth in it, and we were very fortunate to get growth when a lot of similar budgets are being cut, you know, one would be hard pressed to, I believe, resign under those kinds of situations. It probably wouldn't be appropriate at all.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Ms. CLEAVE: I mean, there are a lot of people that are really struggling because the president is committed to trying to balance his budget and work on the deficit, so, you have to look at it in the larger context.

FLATOW: So you go into space with the budget that you have, rather than the budget that you want?

Ms. CLEAVE: Well, I think that's always the case. You always would like more money.

FLATOW: Yeah. Was there a big fight put up for more money?

Ms. CLEAVE: For the president's budget?

FLATOW: Well, for the money that was being transferred to restore the budget? To restore it, to prevent the money taken out of the science division going to the astronaut division.

Ms. CLEAVE: When we build the president's budget, we do that internally, and we don't, you can imagine that building a huge budget, like there is every year, that there are a lot of puts and takes that go back and forth.

FLATOW: Right.

Ms. CLEAVE: And we just don't talk about that internal take.

FLATOW: Right. I understand. But it seems almost embarrassing to NASA that you could have one month, the administrator saying one thing, and having to turn around the next month and say, whoops, I was wrong about that. It almost sounds like he didn't, wasn't even involved in that budgetary decision.

Ms. CLEAVE: Well, no, the way this works, the budget gets worked on over a long period of time. And as that happens, different things happen too. I mean, there was this, you know, there were any number of things that occurred over the year this year, with regard to our government, including a huge hurricane down in Louisiana. All these things needed to be paid for. So, it's not unusual that things, you know, change over time as different events occur.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm, so your money to fix the buildings at the cape, and possibly other places, did not come from the Katrina budget, it came from the NASA budget?

Ms. CLEAVE: I don't understand your...

FLATOW: Well, you said that there was, the money that was, you know, unanticipated, like from Katrina, had to come out of the budget to pay for Katrina-related items.

Ms. CLEAVE: I didn't say that. I said different things occurred that could have impacted the budget in general that was proposed.

FLATOW: Uh-huh.

Ms. CLEAVE: For instance, we got hit with a hurricane, the government had to figure out how to pay for all of that, see.

FLATOW: Right.

Ms. CLEAVE: So, I wasn't referring to certain parts of the budget, I was giving you an example of why things would change over time, as you're building a budget.

FLATOW: You know, there are scientists that would say that, and we've talked about it before, that there's the danger that you could cripple the U.S. science capacity, you know, discourage young scientists who might want to enter the field because the budgets in space science are being cut. How do you answer that criticism?

Ms. CLEAVE: Well, as we were trying to adjust the budget for less growth, we worked hard on trying to keep a balance between research and development, small, medium, and large missions. We tried, and missions in different parts of the development. We may, you know, and what we're going to do now is sit down with our advisory subcommittees and go through what our proposal was, and if we were off the mark significantly and they see something that, you know, we should have done that we didn't do, we will go ahead and submit an ops plan change up to Congress and ask them for a different budget.

FLATOW: So you think that Congress might be able to come back with some more money for you?

Ms. CLEAVE: No, this is just to put the money that we have in different places.

FLATOW: I see, but not going back to ask, what if Congress offers you more money? We're going have, Congressman Boehlert is coming up right up to and he says, I'll give you more money. Would you be able to spend it?

Ms. CLEAVE: Congress, we will take the money that Congress gives us and try to, you know, and spend it in a way that they propose that we spend it. Because they, that's their jobs.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. They have those purse strings.

Ms. CLEAVE: You bet.

FLATOW: But they can't force you to spend it in a certain way, can they? If they say we want this in space science, instead of going to, let's say the shuttle?

Ms. CLEAVE: Yes, they can put, our money is in different accounts, and they can say we want the money to go into this account not that account.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Is that what happened, in this budget, where you were able to take the money out of one account and stick it in the other?

Ms. CLEAVE: I don't...

FLATOW: I mean if Congress is able to allocate the money specifically, earmark it specifically, how could you then take it, like you have done in this budget, take it out of this, take it out of the exploration budget and put it back into the astronaut budget?

Ms. CLEAVE: Yeah, I understand what you're saying. We do this every year. Okay, so they could say something with our fiscal year '06 budget, but what we're talking about now is the budget that the president proposed for fiscal year 2007. We do this every year. It's so much fun we want to do it every year, right?

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And I just have one more question for you, because I know you have to go and I want to thank you for taking time. Is NASA still committed to doing science for science sake, or does all science now have to fit within this larger space exploration agenda?

Ms. CLEAVE: No,that was, one thing that Mike said very strongly. The science that we do at NASA stands on its own merit, we do have a very balanced portfolio of earth science, heliophysics, astrophysics, and planetary science. And we work, are working with the academy to do the classic decadal study planning that we always have.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for taking time to be with us.

Ms. CLEAVE: Thanks, Ira, good to talk to you.

FLATOW: You too. Mary Cleave is NASA's associated administrator for science in Washington, D.C. I'd like to bring back my other guest, Wes Huntress, NASA's associate administrator for space science from 1992 to 1998 and Director of the Geophysical Lab at the Carnegie Institute in Washington. Any reaction to Dr. Cleave's statement?

Dr. HUNTRESS: Well, I think you heard Mary's discomfort with having to deal with the cut of $3 billion to her own budget, and still be a good soldier for the administration. Basically, what's happened here is that the administration two years ago put out a new vision for space exploration and a budget at that time which would support it. In the past two years the administration has cut that budget down, over its five-year runout, to the point where it no longer can be supported without taking money away from the other things that the agency does. Last year, the money came out of Aeronautics and Technology. This year, additional reductions and a need to fly the shuttle until 2010, that money was taken out of science, as well as the technology supported within science. And so that accounts for, you know, really what has happened here. And the problem is that we're using the money to pay for our past, the space station and the shuttle, and present fixes to the shuttle, but mortgaging our future in science and technology to what I think is an unacceptable degree.

FLATOW: Did scientists have input in what would be cut from the budget?

Dr. MORRING: None whatsoever, which is a major change in process within the agency. Normally, the science community is actively engaged with the science division in the agency to try to assist in what would construct the best balance in both good times and in bad times such as this. But that was not done.

FLATOW: What would they have recommended? You know, if you have to bleed, what should be bleeding?

Dr. MORRING: Well, I think, in fact, if for the moment you decide what you're going to have to do to account for a loss of three billion dollars over five years, is you start looking at what are the highest priority items that you need to do in order to insure a future. And those things are, you have to maintain the science community and the people who are going to do this, you have to maintain an investment in the technology that will allow you to build those missions in the future, you need missions flying all the time to support the science community and to keep information coming back from the solar system and beyond. Those are the smaller, medium class missions, and to the extent you can do them, you do the flagships. If you got enough budget for it. It's a matter of the right balance among all those things. And I don't think they got it right.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. I'd like to bring on another guest. Last week the Science Committee of the House of Representatives held a hearing on the impact of NASA's budget on the agency science programs. Joining me now to talk about the hearing is Sherwood Boehlert who is chair of the Committee on Science in the House of Representatives, and a Congressman from New York's 24th District in Utica. Welcome back to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Representative Boehlert.

Representative SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (Republican, New York): It's good to be back with you.

FLATOW: What do you think of those photos today in the paper from, those Cassini Mission photos?

Rep. BOEHLERT: It's just thrilling. I mean, it takes your breath away. There's so much being accomplished. This is a classic example of some of the activities that we're getting, some of the results that we're getting from our investment in science.

FLATOW: What is your reaction to the shifting of this funding? Is there any, is it something that just has to happen?

Rep. BOEHLERT: Well, as I said, opening the hearing, Dr. Huntress will attest by this. I'm extremely uneasy about the budget, and I'm extremely uneasy about the overall direction. I have said repeatedly that NASA has to be a multi- dimensional agency, not a one-dimensional agency talking only about shuttles, space stations, and missions to Mars. We've got to talk about all these other activities that are so critically important. The problem is, I mean, I think Dr. Cleave, more than anyone, would like more money for science. I certainly want more money for science. The question is, where is the money going to come from? That's why we had a most productive hearing last week with Dr. Huntress and the others from the science community, along with Mary Cleave talking, having a dialog with the science committee. We're trying to sort things out, but the bottom line is, I am uneasy about the budget. I want more money for science. I want more money that is directed to programs that impact in a favorable way the most important planet in the universe, the one we live on. The planet earth.

FLATOW: Talking with the Representative, Sherwood Boehlert of New York, this hour on TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR News. And Congressman, where do you get the money from?

Rep. BOEHLERT: That's the problem. That's the sticky wicket, as our friends from the U.K. would say. And I have to give a lot of credit to Mike Griffin, the administrator. I mean he is, he's been very candid. I think he's a model of competence for the agency. He's brought in some new people in the agency to try to turn it around, but the question is, where do we get the more money? I would like to see more money for the agency directed toward the science programs. But the fact of the matter is, every other chairman of every other committee is in there scrambling too. And we have a lot of demands for limited resources. So we'll have to sort this thing out. Is this budget proposal from the administration going to be approved by the Congress as submitted? I don't think so at all. We're going to work our will. We're going to make some adjustments. We're going to make some recommendations for some changes and I can assure people interested in the overall subject of science, not just in the agency NASA, but across the board. And one of the things that warmed my heart was listening the president in the state of the union message talking about the American competitiveness initiative, and putting more money in science. Putting more money in science and math education starting from the beginning. That's where we're going to get the future scientists, whether there'll be in NASA or the Department of Energy, or any one of the other agencies, by investing in education. So, then the words, the eloquent words in the state of union really don't mean much for anybody. All presidents do the same and very positive and up, upbeat, uplifting.

FLATOW: But Congressman what better message can you send to young children and people watching, reading the papers these days, than to see these fantastic pictures that come back from, you know, the space missions. We don't hear hardly anything about this, you know, the international space station. But we see on the front page of even the tabloids, talking about things that are, you know, of pictures coming back from the solar system.

Rep. BOEHLERT: Couldn't agree more.

FLATOW: I would think that every Congressperson would want to jump on that and say, see, I can give you this.

Rep. BOEHLERT: I couldn't agree more with your basic analysis, but what I'm pointing out is that science is a broad category. We need to double, as it's proposed in the budget over a 10 year period, the funding for the National Science Foundation. We need to double funding for the Office of Science in the Department of Energy, as it's proposed in the budget. We need to invest a lot more in science, but specifically to the subject at hand, NASA and its budget. When the president outlined his vision two years ago, he pretty well had a course projected where we'd have significant more money for science than is now being proposed. If you look at the computer runs, and you factor in inflation, science actually is going to be cut in NASA. And I don't think that should be. So, I agree with your basic premise. We need to inspire young scientists. We need to assure them that they've got a future, and one of the ways to do it, is to invest in programs that make that future possible.

FLATOW: Congressman Boehlert, I want to thank you for taking time for talking with us today.

Rep. BOEHLERT: Thank you so much.

FLATOW: Sherwood Boehlert, chair of the Committee of Science in the House of Representatives, from New York's 24th District in Utica. I'm Ira Flatow.

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FLATOW: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking this hour about NASA's funding priorities. My guest is Wes Huntress who is former NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science and right now, he's Director of the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Our number, 1-800-989-8255. Wes, did you hear any encouraging notes being struck by Congressman Boehlert there?

Mr. HUNTRESS JR.: Well, yes I did. Congressman Boehlert has been a staunch supporter of science throughout his term with the House Science Committee, and he's going to work hard to see if we can't do something about this. And I was, I was encouraged by what he said, you know, on your show here this morning. But it's going to be very difficult to find additional money. And I suspect the Congress will find a little bit additional to add to science. But I'd like to focus to the thing he said at the end, which is that science in the agency has now been put on a declining course. Prior to this budget, it had been on a growing course, even growing faster than the rest of the agency because of its productivity, because of the headlines that you've just been talking about. But then to turn, to swing the pendulum the other way, and put it on a declining course seems not to make any sense at all. And so, hopefully, we'll be able to correct perhaps the top line a little bit. And also, to allow science to grow at least as much as the rest of the agency's doing.

FLATOW: One of the the points that was made in the Congressman's hearing, it came from actually the associate chairman of his committee, Congressman Calvert, actually brought up the fact that we are now involved in a new space race with China talking about, that China having, is headed for a landing, he said as early as 2017, on the moon, and NASA is heading for 2018. And we have to remain competitive. That's the word that was used. Is that a good or a bad way of looking at this?

Mr. HUNTRESS JR.: Well, I actually disagree with, respectfully, with the Congressman. I don't believe we are in a race with China. If you look at the pace with which they are doing their missions, it's a very slow and a very deliberate one. They make an astronaut launch every two years, or three. They're taking their time. They're going to do it right. 2017, I think, is when they're really going to put an unmanned lander on the moon, not a manned one. They're not ready for that yet. And in fact, I think we should be looking at China not as a competitor, but in fact, as a potential partner. Just like the Russians have become. Space should be a place for peaceful cooperation, not for competition.

FLATOW: And so, are there any efforts among scientists or politicians, that you know of, to bring China into a partnership instead of a competition?

Mr. HUNTRESS JR.: Well, in the science community, just as it was back in the bad old Soviet days, the relationships are good, scientist to scientist, and among scientific organizations. But at that top levels of government, it's not all that good. And so, it's going to take some political will at the top of the government to try to engage China in something that is as unthreatening as space cooperation is.

FLATOW: Let me ask you one last question, because I know you have to go, and I want to thank you for all this time you've devoted to the program. Looking forward, is there something, we got into it a little bit before, something you talk about the need to keep things going all the time, to keep the talent here and the juices flowing, is there a mission, something like the James Webb Space Telescope idea, that could be put off a little bit? The expensive, something that's expensive, that could be put off a little bit further into the future so as to save some of the more current missions? The smaller size missions?

Mr. HUNTRESS JR.: Well, yeah, I do think that. I think we need to rethink the balance that NASA has proposed, because I think it's in the wrong direction. And that is in order to keep our young people engaged in this program, they have to be able to see a future for themselves and a future in this, to remain engaged, and to keep our brightest and our best. And that means that we've got to give them a vision for the future for the next five years. So far, the message from NASA has been really slash and burn, which isn't a good message to be delivering. So, I think we need to do something about that.

FLATOW: Dr. Huntress, thank you very much for taking time to be with us.

Mr. HUNTRESS JR.: Pleasure to be here.

FLATOW: Wes Huntress. Wes Huntress who is Geophysical Laboratory Director at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and former NASA associate administrator for space science from 1992 to 1998. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.