US House of Representatives proposes new NASA management structure

Science : The Space Leadership Preservation Act would establish an 11-member board to draft NASA’s budget and short-list candidates for the agency’s administrator, deputy administrator, and CFO positions. The administrator position would also be turned into a fixed-length office of 10 years. The bill was cosponsored by six members of the House of Representatives, including Frank Wolf (R-VA), the chair of the subcommittee responsible for NASA’s budget. Members of Congress have criticized the current administration’s scaling back of NASA’s robotic exploration plans and questioned its commitment to human spaceflight. Wolf cited increased competition from nations such as China as a reason to reform the agency’s management. Space policy analyst Marcia Smith believes that the bill doesn’t address the actual issues facing the agency, which are rooted in the lack of compromise between the executive and legislative branches.