JANUARY 10, 1999

LOST IN SPACE

Meatballs Devour Worms!!

or the past six years NASA has been trying to wipe out the tubular red logo ("the worm") that has symbolized space exploration since 1975. The chief exterminator is Dan Goldin, NASA's administrator, who says that the original 1958 emblem ("the meatball") better commemorates the program's mission. But wasting the worm, which has adorned everything from welcome mats to wind tunnels, is taking longer than Goldin would like.

Keith Cowing, an ex-NASA payload manager who documents worm sightings on the NASA Watch Web site (http://www.reston.com/nasa/watch.html), raps Goldin's subordinates for obsessively hiding the worm from the boss. A NASA spokesman protests, saying the agency is worming itself -- harmlessly -- over time (old letterhead will be used up, etc.): "If someone decides they better go and eradicate this, that or the other thing, it's not because of Goldin."

But an internal memo E-mailed to facility operations managers at the Goddard Space Flight Center on Dec. 9 and leaked to Cowing points to an unforgiving attitude about the parasitic logo. The memo asks the managers to "remove or cover up" any remaining worms in advance of a visit by Goldin, who is fond of wearing a meatball lapel pin, because the creepy-crawly is one of his "pet peeves." "This may seem somewhat trivial," the memo says, "but life is hard enough without making folks in high places mad."

Goldin, for his part, denies that the meatball is an obsession or the worm a pet peeve, then adds, "but if people think it is and it helps to stimulate positive change, I'm all for it."