NASA officials have stated on a number of occasions that they have no plans right now to close one or more of its field centers; instead, current efforts are focused on closing specific facilities at those centers. That, however, hasn’t stopped people from taking preemptive action to fight potential center closings.
The AP reported yesterday that Ohio state senator Robert F. Spada, a suburban Cleveland Republican who is also Assistant Majority Floor Leader, has introduced a resolution to “memorialize Congress to take appropriate action so that NASA Glenn Research Center is excluded from the list of base closures for the Base Realignment and Closure process.” (The full text of the resolution, SCR 12, wasn’t available yet on the Ohio Senate’s web site as of this morning.) Never mind the fact that there is no “Base Realignment and Closure process” at NASA right now. The resolution was mixed in with a number of others designed to protect Ohio military bases that could be subject to an authentic BRAC.
Meanwhile, the Hampton Roads Daily Press, in an editorial Friday, urges its readers to “jump and shout” to let NASA and Congress know not to close the Langley Research Center. The editors don’t take at face value the statement by NASA associate administrator Vic Lebacqz that there are no plans to close Langley, comparing his one-word denial (“no”) to previous infamous statements by Bill Clinton and Paul Wolfowitz (ouch!). The editorial asks Virginia senators John Warner and George Allen to press NASA administrator nominee Michael Griffin on this during his upcoming confirmation hearing.
The centers could adapt by doing more space technology/science.
I agree.
I agree.
As usual, it appears the Senators and Congressmen are only interested in the jobs in their respective districts instead of what NASA needs as a whole. If parts of centers (or entire centers for that matter) need to be closed or a RIF enacted, so be it. NASA needs to have the ability to trim excesses and redundancies where it can find them without concerns of legislative retributions.
Hopefully NASA is finally gaining the testicular fortitude to do what should have been done long ago. Let us hope Congress can do the same.
Although it is absurd that Congress fights so hard to preserve only a few thousand jobs in select states, when thousands of people lose their jobs in the private sector every day, there are other legitimate issues here.
A key question is, as Congressman Boehlert has noted, if NASA should be a “single-mission agency” devoted only to “exploration.” Should it perform other missions too? Is the current NASA definition of “exploration” the proper one? (Or is it even a clear definition?)
Another question is how much the agency should be involved in aeronautics research. The federal government has _always_ played a major role in the development of American aviation. The modern airplane is not simply a product of private ingenuity from the Wright Brothers. Airfoils, high-lift devices, the supercritical wing, the angled wing, jet engines, high-bypass turbofan engines, modern avionics and flight controls, radar and hundreds of other important technological developments were funded by the federal government.
For the past 25 years or so there has been a simmering debate about how much the government should continue to fund aeronautical research. This is just an extension of that debate.