NASA IG RECOMMENDS NASA "REASSESS" CONTROVERSIAL TRIANA PROJECT

Sensenbrenner: I hope NASA will take the IG's reassessment recommendation to heart and let science--not politics--decide how to spend NASA's scarce budget dollars.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Based on a review of NASA's controversial Triana mission, the NASA Inspector General (IG) is recommending NASA "should reassess (and modify if necessary) its current approach to the mission." In March 1999, Vice President Al Gore announced NASA's Triana project that would send a vessel into space to beam back a picture of the Earth, available on television and the Internet 24-hours-a-day. Gore said the satellite would "help us reach new heights of understanding and insight."

In a letter to NASA Administrator Dan Goldin accompanying the report, NASA IG Roberta L. Gross states, "In the context of NASA's constrained budget and the widespread availability of satellite pictures of the Earth, we are concerned about the cost and changing goals of the Triana mission...we are concerned that Triana's added science may not represent the best expenditures of NASA's limited science funding."

House Science Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., (R-WI) said, "Members of Congress have shared the IG's concerns about Triana's questionable scientific merits since Vice President Gore's announcement of this project. I hope NASA will take the IG's reassessment recommendation to heart and let science--not politics--decide how to spend NASA's scarce budget dollars."

Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA), who, along with Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), authored the House provision canceling the Triana project, stated, "This report provides further compelling reasons supporting cancellation of the Triana mission. The cost of this project has grown from a goal of $20 million to $50 million to $77 million using NASA figures. Now, the IG shows that the true cost is two to three times higher, some $144 to $221 million once all the costs are accounted for. The IG confirms the Committee's position that the basic concept of Triana was never subjected to peer review."

"And perhaps most important, the IG concludes that the intended launch on the Shuttle may well be illegal, in violation of the Commercial Space Act. In the next two weeks the Appropriations conferees will meet on the FY00 VA-HUD bill, and this new report confirms the wisdom of both the authorizers and appropriators in canceling this waste of taxpayer money," Rep. Nethercutt added.

NASA originally told Congress Triana would cost somewhere between $20-50 million, including launch costs. NASA's IG finds Triana now could cost anywhere between $144 million and $221 million when all costs are counted though NASA had only spent $24.7 million by the end of July 1999.

Chairman Sensenbrenner added, "By terminating the Triana mission sooner, rather than later, we will free up well over $100 million for higher NASA priorities."

"When I offered the amendment to reprogram the Triana project, many accused us of being partisan for criticizing this Gore-favored program. I think now that we have the IG report in, there can be no doubt about the dubiousness of the Triana project. This is an undertaking that saps NASA's precious resources and should be terminated post haste," said Rep. Dave Weldon.

The NASA IG's report also validates criticism that Triana circumvented the normal merit-based procedures, including peer review, for science missions. "NASA has described the Triana mission as the product of a rigorous peer review process. However, only the science to be conducted on the mission was peer reviewed. Neither internal nor external advisory groups reviewed whether a spacecraft beaming back pictures of the Earth on the Internet was the most effective way to educate and inspire the public, or whether L1 was the most appropriate location from which to conduct Earth science investigations," reads the NASA IG's report.

"The NASA Inspector General deserves public recognition for identifying an ill-conceived, poorly-implemented mission and recommending corrective action. I commend her and her staff for the commitment to good government and an effective space program," stated Chairman Sensenbrenner.

The full IG report is available at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/oig/hq/

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