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NASA Has Too Many Astronauts Who Wait Too Long to Fly, Agency's Report Says

Posted on: Friday, 11 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

Jul. 11--WASHINGTON--NASA's Johnson Space Center has hired too many astronauts who are waiting too many years to fly, costing taxpayers too much money, the space agency's inspector general said Thursday.

A report by the agency's internal watchdog found that as of December 2002, 53 of NASA's 116 active astronauts had yet to fly in space. Training for a first shuttle flight takes at least 28 months and at least 3 1/2 years of training is required for those serving on the international space station.

But the report said mission specialists in the class of 2000 likely would wait an average of nearly nine years before flying for the first time. Now, with the agency's last three shuttles grounded in the wake of the Columbia disaster, that wait could be even longer.

The report was to be released in February, but was delayed following Columbia's break up over Texas on Feb. 1. The accident killed all seven astronauts.

The inspector general said the report, which has not been updated since Columbia, is being released now because it could affect recruiting for NASA's 2004 astronaut class, which is to include pilots, mission specialists and several schoolteachers culled from a nationwide search.

JSC spokesman John Ira Petty said the agency will address the report's concerns but does plan to interview astronaut applicants this fall for the 2004 class. How many will be selected, he said, has not been decided.

The report said JSC has brought too many astronauts into the corps in recent years because it was "overly optimistic" in predicting the number of shuttles NASA would fly as well as the number of astronauts who would be needed to serve aboard the space station.

Thirty-five astronauts were hired in 1996; 25 in 1998. At that time, NASA was planning on seven or eight shuttle flights per year, and the station was to be home to six or seven crew members at a time.

But the space agency has flown only about five shuttle flights a year. Budget cuts, delays in the station's construction and the small size of the Russian Soyuz vehicle that would serve as an emergency ride back to Earth has limited the station crew to three.

Post-Columbia, the station is being operated by a two-person caretaker crew -- an American and a Russian -- to conserve on food, water and other supplies until shuttles are flying again.

The inspector general report said JSC's need to staff engineering positions in Houston also played a role in the center's decisions to hire too many astronauts in the 1990s. Now, the report said, too many highly trained, highly paid astronauts are performing jobs that others could fill.

How much money this is costing the space agency in salaries and training, however, is unclear.

The inspector general's office said it was unable to nail down that figure because NASA's financial records are too difficult to navigate, a problem the agency is working to fix.

Melissa Motichek, a spokeswoman at NASA headquarters, said the average astronaut earns $115,000 in salary. Engineers' salaries vary widely, depending on their areas of expertise and years of experience.

Petty said the typical astronaut comes on board in Houston, goes through training and then is given a technical assignment, often serving in Mission Control, while awaiting a chance to fly.

But Petty said JSC officials are reviewing the report and intend to carry out its recommendations to rein in hiring. No layoffs are planned.

The agency's associate administrator for spaceflight, Bill Readdy, has concurred with the inspector general's report and promised months ago that future astronaut classes would be based on more realistic estimates of how many astronauts would be needed.

In fact, the agency had already begun curtailing its recruiting of new astronauts. This fall's recruitment will be the first since 2000, when 17 astronauts were hired.

Investigators who have been probing the Columbia accident for the past five months have concluded that insulating foam shed from the shuttle's external fuel tank during liftoff struck the spacecraft, causing enough damage to doom it as it re-entered the atmosphere. NASA hopes to correct problems with the foam and address other safety issues in the coming months with the goal of flying again by next spring.

How many astronauts will be needed, however, is still an open question. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe has indicated that once a planned orbital space plane is a reality to transfer astronauts to and from the space station, the space shuttle could be modified to fly without a crew.

The next generation of spacecraft that could potentially fly beyond the space station could be a decade or more away.

WAITING TO FLY

Among findings by NASA's inspector general:

-- As of last December, 53 of 116 active astronauts had yet to fly in space.

-- This fall's recruitment -- the first since 17 astronauts were hired in 2000 -- is to include pilots, mission specialists and schoolteachers. The number of hires has not yet been set.

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(c) 2003, Houston Chronicle. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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