Bart Gordon Doubts NASA's Budget Numbers Will Add Up

Q&A: Bart Gordon, Nature (subscription)

“Does NASA have its priorities right? Do you feel that a realistic number has been put on the cost of sending humans to Mars?

I would like to see NASA do all that it is proposing and more. But we need to do a better job of oversight. I want to see if all of the numbers add up, and frankly I don’t think they will. If they don’t, we will have to take a hard look at priorities. I don’t want to pass problems on to others. What we have seen with NASA is that prior administrators just keep on passing on problems. Someone needs to take oversight.”

Gordon Steps Up to House Science Post, Science (subscription)

“As chair of the committee’s space panel in the early 1990s, Gordon developed an interest in space-related issues that is likely to translate into closer scrutiny of the Bush Administration’s proposed moon-Mars exploration program and its impact on space science. “I think that both are underfunded,” he says, “but I think we need to know more before we can move ahead.”