WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA's embattled chief came under fire on Wednesday over a failed Mars mission, but told a Senate panel he plans no changes in the U.S. space agency's ``cheaper, faster, better'' approach.
Daniel Goldin, who heads the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, categorically denied news reports that his agency tried to cover up a problem with the unmanned Mars Polar Lander craft. The craft went astray Dec. 3 as it started its descent to the surface of the Red Planet.
In testimony to a Senate science panel, Goldin said stories that NASA withheld information about fatal problems with braking thrusters on the craft were incorrect. He said the agency held a public briefing on the subject in early November, nearly a month before the ship was scheduled to land on Mars.
``We knew about that in November and we asked for an additional set of tests to make sure, and they did those tests and they reset the conditions on the spacecraft, so we did not believe it would be a fatal flaw after the tests,'' Goldin said in response to senators' questions.
The demise of the $165 million Mars Polar Lander came only months after its companion probe, the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter, was destroyed last September because of an embarrassing mix-up over metric and English measurements.
The failure of the two Mars probes have raised questions about Goldin's push for ``cheaper, faster, better'' missions. But the NASA chief said he had no plans to change course and would continue to approve projects with an element of risk.
``This is what you gotta do, and when you say 'I'm afraid,' what you do is you set mediocre goals and everyone's happy and budgets go up,'' Goldin said.
``Not Afraid Of Failure''
Noting that NASA's overall budgets have declined in the last seven years while the rest of the budget has increased, Goldin said his philosophy was in line with the American people's desire.
``Because NASA was determined that we were going to listen to the American people about doing more with less, we said we are not afraid of failure, we are going to set the beat of the drum in this nation and we are not going to accept mediocrity and we're going to push the limits, and when we have failure we are going to be accountable,'' Goldin said.
He did acknowledge problems in staffing, saying that because the number of NASA programs has increased and the pace to get them moving has quickened, there was inadequate training and mentoring.
``We're bringing on a new staff that has never been in leadership positions,'' Goldin said. ``I believe the problem was in inadequate training and mentoring of those people.''
He acknowledged that under the old NASA model, projects took longer to complete, often as long as a decade, fostering stability and plenty of time for training.
After shrinking the NASA workforce from about 25,000 to about 18,500, Goldin said the agency plans to hire some 2,000 new workers. This task was made tougher, however, because of the lure of the Internet economy, he said.
``We have to complete with dot-com companies,'' Goldin said. ``The president of one of the major technical universities said to me, 'Dan, my smart kids are wanting to get equity in the companies and they're looking at compensation measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars.'
``But none of these dot-com companies, none of these high-tech companies, have what we have: the NASA vision and the American dream,'' Goldin said.
Mitch Battros
Producer - Earth Changes TV
http://www.earthchangesTV.com