
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 5, 1990                   TAG: 9007050061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

REPORT CITED OVERSIGHT DIFFICULTIES

A cap on the number of NASA overseers for the Hubble Space Telescope project, imposed partly because of pressure from a secrecy-minded Pentagon, made it difficult for the space agency to adequately monitor the manufacturing a decade ago of the mirrors for the telescope, according to scientists and others familiar with the project.

NASA's headquarters approved 90 people, who were based at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to supervise telescope contractors such as Perkin-Elmer (now Hughes Danbury Optical Systems), according to a 1983 report by the House Appropriations Committee investigations staff. "This amounted to 50 percent of manning NASA would normally allocate to a program of this magnitude," the report said.

The restriction was imposed after an agreement by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense "to limit the number of NASA personnel `penetrating' contractors who were also working on classified Department of Defense projects," the report said.

Perkin-Elmer and other telescope contractors were using methods for Hubble similar to technology they had developed during work on military photo spy satellites, specialists said.

Although the personnel cap was technically lifted in 1979, House investigators concluded that staffing levels rose only slowly and "inadequate contractor monitoring resulted." There were three resident NASA monitors at Perkin-Elmer when the primary and secondary mirrors were manufactured, Humphreys said. During other aspects of the project, the number rose to 20 or more.

by CNB