To: Organization and Management of Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics@NAS

cc: tgandet@mindspring.com

Subject: Federal support of Astronomical Sciences

Hello,

I would like to comment on the subjects currently being discussed by the NRC Committee on Organization and Management of Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

1) the organizational effectiveness of Federal support of astronomical sciences:

The transferal of much - if not most - of the Federal organizational funding for astronomy and astrophysics from NSF to NASA has had, I believe, a number of negative results. The worst of them has been the increasing centralization of research in NASA centers and not in the country's colleges and universities. The impact of that on access by students to otherwise available faculty members has been great. Also, the transferal of funding has resulted in the decline of small, local centers of research. While it may be possible that NASA could fund those kinds of activities, NSF has a long history of doing so and does it extremely efficiently. NASA, unfortunately, is legendary for its inefficiencies and - dare I say it! - ineptitude, partly brought about by its overlybroad charter.

2) the advantage and disadvantages of transferring NSF's astronomy responsibilities to NASA:

I see no advantages whatsoever. To transfer more authority to NASA would be to compound exisiting problems and to confuse their respective missions. NASA's charter should be limited to manned space flight and directly related research, as was its original mission. NSF's mission was to sponsor research and education in several sciences, astronomy and astrophysics amongst them, and it did that job very well.

It may be argued that centralizing funding for astronomy and astrophysics is desirable; but that job was already being done by NSF. The funding and administrative authority given to NASA in areas of astronomy and astrophysics - which are, of course, not the same as manned space flight - should be transferred back to NSF.

3) other options for addressing the management and organizational issues identified by the committee and by recent NRC reports.

I would like to suggest that funding for all astronomical and astrophysics research be provided by only NSF and that NASA's mission be limited to manned space flight (and directly related research) and to launching - not funding - science experiments funded by NSF.

Thank you for the opportunity to express my views.