NASA replaces advisers

In the wake of the controversial dismissals of two scientists and the resignation of a third from the NASA Advisory Council in a dispute over the direction of science research at the space agency (see Physics Today, October 2006, page 27 ), NASA administrator Michael Griffin has named 9 new members to the 33-member panel. Edward David, President Richard Nixon’s science adviser from 1970 to 1973, will chair the council’s science committee, while physicist C. Paul Robinson, former director of Sandia National Laboratories, will chair the new space operations committee.

The three scientists who left the council, Wesley Huntress, Charles Kennel, and Eugene Levy, all served on the science committee and had philosophical disputes with council chairman Harrison Schmitt over NASA’s shift of resources from scientific research to manned spaceflight programs. David declined to comment about the controversy, but Robinson said there is no easy answer to balancing manned and unmanned programs “unless more money goes to NASA. It’s a tough decision, and if you try to run both without enough funding, they both will suffer.”

Robinson said that as the chair of the space operations committee, he will use the experience he gained launching target rockets for the missile defense program to keep the NASA shuttle launch team at a high level of readiness, despite the “starts, stops, and postponements” that are typical of shuttle launches.