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Congress wants to examine NASA’s shuttle allocations

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By John Nolan, Staff Writer 5:44 PM Wednesday, April 13, 2011

A congressional investigation of how NASA made its decision to allocate space orbiters for permanent display could shed light on the process, but is unlikely to change the outcome, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said Wednesday.

Still, Brown and other members of Ohio’s congressional delegation have asked the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative and auditing arm, to examine whether NASA followed congressional directions in allocating the orbiters, as the space shuttle program ends this year.

Ohio politicians were smarting from NASA’s announcement Tuesday that it decided not to award an orbiter to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. The museum attracts 1.3 million visitors annually, offers free admission and parking, and is within a day’s drive of 60 percent of the U.S. population.

The GAO review should disclose NASA’s criteria for making the orbiter allocation decision, members of the team that recommended the sites and how the final decision was made, according to a bipartisan letter sent Tuesday to the GAO by Brown and Reps. Mike Turner, Steve Austria, Marcy Kaptur and Steven LaTourette.

“Nobody really knows quite how this decision was made,” Brown said.

NASA said Tuesday that the spacecraft will go to Kennedy Space Center, Fla.; Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in the Washington, D.C., area; California Science Center, Los Angeles, and New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

The letter from the Ohio elected officials questioned whether NASA followed congressional direction in 2010 NASA funding legislation to consider regional diversity and educational value when choosing sites for the orbiters.

Brown said that although he hopes the GAO examination will reveal NASA’s rationale for the decision, he does not expect it will change the outcome.

NASA recommended sites judged the “best value to American taxpayers,” including educational benefits and domestic and international access to the sites, Olga Dominguez, an assistant NASA administrator, told reporters on Tuesday. NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. followed the recommendations of the NASA strategic infrastructure office she heads, Dominguez said.

“I stand by the process we followed,” she said. “Congress has the right to fully understand and vet that process.”

President Obama included $14 million in his budget for fiscal 2012 to prepare and deliver the orbiter Atlantis to the Air Force museum. Since NASA decided to assign Atlantis to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, the money will either “go away” or be spent for something else, Brown said.

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By John Nolan

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Staff Writer

“Nobody really knows quite how this decision was made,” Brown said.

Brown said that although he hopes the GAO examination will reveal NASA’s rationale for the decision, he does not expect it will change the outcome.

“I stand by the process we followed,” she said. “Congress has the right to fully understand and vet that process.”

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