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cancellation of the Apollo program by President Nixon, was motivated by the scathing assessment of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) concerning the lack of strategic vision and purpose for the U.S. space program.  The newly established direction for our civil space program is still quite vulnerable, despite what I consider extraordinary bipartisan support in Congress in the form of two successive NASA Authorization Acts, in 2005 and again in 2008.  It is simply not possible to obtain any significant value from investments in NASA if the purpose of these investments is altered at the whim of every successive presidential administration.  This usually occurs without significant direct involvement by the president. Policy is changed or altered by relatively junior, and in any case non-accountable, staff. Space policy must be viewed on decadal timescales, not through the lens of presidential or Congressional electoral cycles, if it is to be of value.

As a direct result of the broad reexamination of civil space policy which occurred following the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia, and after extensive national debate, NASA is now on what I believe to be the proper path for our publicly-funded enterprise. This must be broadly recognized and supported across multiple presidential transitions, beginning with this one, and on both sides of the aisle in Congress. It is imperative that progress continue on the exploration strategy without a new round of soul-searching debate or another extensive study. Any delay will only serve to increase the gap in U.S. human spaceflight capabilities, and further erode our leadership in human space exploration. We have begun our journey along a multi-decade path, and the focus needs to be on sustaining that journey.

7) If you could write the "top five" goals for new administrator, what would be on the list?

(a) See #1, #3, and #6, above.  We need to stay the course on Exploration strategy, retain the matrix management structure which has been reestablished, and work to remove excess process from the agency. If these things are not done, nothing else counts.

(b) NASA requires funding sufficient to accomplish the tasks we are being asked to perform, and to fix our 40+ year old infrastructure.  Specifically, about $3 B per year additional funding is required to repair and upgrade our institutional infrastructure, initiate sorely needed research and technology development efforts, and robustly execute those programs with which we are already charged. This would be without substantial additions to programmatic content. If new programmatic content is desired, then more money is necessary.

(c) Periodic direct involvement by the president himself with the NASA Administrator, who in fact reports to the president, to minimize and control attempts by, and the deleterious effects of, numerous White House EOP staff imposing their personal agendas on the conduct of NASA affairs. The NASA Administrator owes it to the president to manage NASA in accordance with stated presidential policy and Congressional authorization and appropriations law. The president owes it to his NASA Administrator to ensure that other voices and other agendas are not prevailing over that of the president, merely because they can.  The "mattress mice" - many of them career civil servants, not political appointees - who serve on the EOP staff are always there. If the president is not personally involved, individual staff agendas will prevail over stated presidential policy. In an environment where the Administrator does not have reasonably regular