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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 12, 1995                   TAG: 9507120051
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HAMPTON                                LENGTH: Short

THREAT TO LANGLEY SURPRISES NASA

NASA officials and an aide to Rep. Herbert Bateman, R-Newport News, say they were surprised by a proposal in Congress to shut down the space agency's Langley Research Center in Virginia and two other facilities by 1998.

But the plan taken up Monday night by a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee was only the first draft of a broad budget package that will be debated and revised through September.

``It's still early in the process,'' said Dan Scandling, a spokesman for Bateman, R-1st.

``It's just one of the latest of a number of assaults on NASA that we've seen in the last few months,'' said Michael Finneran, a NASA Langley spokesman. ``We'll just have to wait and see what happens.''

The Langley facility, which employs about 5,000 government workers and contractors, already is slated to lose an estimated 1,000 jobs during the next five years under NASA's own reorganization plan.

``The country would be absolutely stupid to close a facility that has as much to offer as Langley has,'' said Joseph Talbot, a former deputy director for the center's space and atmospheric sciences program group.

Dan Scandling, a spokesman for Bateman, said the representative would work to get the closing idea killed.

by CNB