Memorandum for the Record: 8 May 2002 Senate Hearings, NASA Office of Legislative Affairs

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

SUBJECT: May 8, 2002, FY 2003 Posture Hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s Subcommittee on Science,
Technology, and Space

WITNESS: Mr. Sean O’Keefe, Administrator, NASA

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), Ranking Member George Allen (R-VA), B. Dorgan, (D-ND),
B. Nelson, (D-FL), C. Burns, (R-MT), Kay B. Hutchison (R-TX)

DURATION: 9:30am Ð 11:45am

SUMMARY:

The briefing discussions began with questions surrounding NASA’s accounting practices,
cost estimating, and business management. The primary programmatic discussions
focused on whether the President’s proposed budget for NASA was sufficient to achieve
the Agency’s Education Agenda, Shuttle safety for the duration of it’s operational life,
ISS configuration capable to enable quality research, and the goals of our Space Launch
Initiative. The Administrator indicated the budget was sufficient to achieve the priorities
that we’ve identified for the coming year. O’Keefe said that a study was underway to
evaluate what additional upgrades may be needed now if we need to extend the life of the
orbiters from 2012 to 2020. The Administrator indicated we will need to re-evaluate our
funding in that area based on the findings/recommendí9ns of the study. O’Keefe said
that the independent cost estimate for reaching ISS Core Complete will be available in
September, but that he believes that this estimate will be within the budget request.

The Subcommittee spent a substantial period of time and a significant amount of passion
in expressing that NASA and the nation need to make aerospace/aviation research a
national priority. Senator Nelson was very committed to pursuing having DoD share in
funding NASA’s SLI program. He emphasized the importance of NASA and DoD
working collaboratively on SLI, but that DoD had a huge budget compared to NASA’s
and should be contributing substantial funds to this NASA managed program.

The Subcommittee was impressed with NASA’s new vision and mission. Senators
Wyden and Nelson said that NASA’s issue is “economic.” The Subcommittee expressed
confidence in the selection of Mr. O’Keefe to address these accounting and business
management challenges at NASA. They said they look forward to NASA getting its
books in order so everyone could discuss the Agency’s exciting research and discoveries.
Wyden closed the session with a summary mandate to the Administrator to – “Get the
accounting done and think big!”

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