By Peter Behr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 10, 1998; Page C01

There's a faraway look in Daniel Goldin's eye as the NASA administrator describes the future of the Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt and the space agency's other installations across the country.

In Goddard's case, far away reaches out an unimaginable 100 million light-years, and to get there NASA will need much more help from the space industry and technology companies in the Washington region and nationwide.

Facing a steadily tightening squeeze on NASA's budget, Goldin wants the agency to convert itself primarily into a center of advanced, long-range research that would have powerful commercial spinoff value. It would rely on the nation's tech companies -- including many in the Washington area -- to launch, manage and pay for space operations in return for getting their hands on NASA's research breakthroughs.

"The new approach is NASA can't afford to do the product development for a lot of these things, and industry can't afford to do the fundamental research. We have a partnership made in heaven," said Goldin, the outspoken former TRW Inc. executive who has pushed NASA through a painful downsizing in his six years as administrator.

This shoot-for-the-stars agenda is as brash as its author, said John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

"He's an optimist and a promoter and a visionary," said Logsdon, who ranks Goldin as one of the two most influential administrators in NASA's history, along with the late James E. Webb, who launched the Apollo program.

"It's an admirable aspiration. In principle, Goldin's approach can't be faulted. The real question is: Can you create new industries based on advanced space technologies?" Logsdon said.

If Goldin's vision comes true, an armada of small "thinking" probes designed by Goddard will be launched early in the next century in search of life beyond earth. The mission illustrates the fundamental change at NASA that Goldin seeks, one that could profoundly alter the space agency's effect on the Washington region's economy. The area's economy receives about $2 billion annually from NASA's salaries and the contracts it awards to about 350 area firms.

NASA's payroll will undoubtedly shrink. The kinds of scientists and engineers it hires will change, and it may be purchasing different hardware and services from some firms not currently on its contracting list, NASA says.

AlliedSignal Corp., Hughes Aerospace, Computer Sciences Corp., Orbital Sciences Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. led a parade of space and technology firms that won NASA contracts in fiscal 1996 for work done in the Washington area, according to the General Services Administration. These top five contractors received more than half the $1.2 billion in contracts to area firms that year.

In Goldin's strategy, NASA would concentrate on breakthroughs in space technologies that have important commercial applications, the carrot for the industry funding he covets. And some of his goals make a manned moon landing seem like kid stuff.

"Our goal is, in the next 10 to 15 years, to directly access earth-like planets within 100 light-years of earth," Goldin said in an interview. "When you make that statement, you are going after a set of technologies that could drive this economy 20 years from now."

On Goldin's to-do list: spacecraft that mimic the human body; optical devices that can detect faint, distant planets; sensors and computer intelligence that would allow a space probe to make its own course corrections; and fantastic advances in data-processing speeds and energy generation.

"Many of them are being done out at Goddard," said Goldin, mindful of the protective eye kept on the space flight center by Maryland's congressional delegation, particularly Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA funding.

Goldin predicts that such space technology will be eagerly sought by U.S. companies. For instance, NASA hopes to develop systems for automating its most complex operations. "Viking, which went to Mars 20 years ago, had 1,000 people in mission operations. Pathfinder has 50. I'd like to get it down to under a dozen. Then, think of the impact [of this technology] on package-delivery systems, operating an auto plant, an airline, a power plant. Those companies that have these skills can migrate it out."

NASA also plans to build predictive models of climate, the environment, natural resources, Goldin added, "so we can have sustainable development on this planet. That's one of Goddard's jobs. They're in charge of it."

Long before such missions are flown, Goldin's initiatives will be shaking up the space agency and its contractors, analysts said.

Goddard, along with the rest of NASA, is midway through a difficult series of job cuts. NASA's total employment in the Washington area, including headquarters staff, dropped from 5,802 in 1993 to 4,272 last year, with further cuts coming. In that period, Goddard's employment has fallen from 4,012 civil servants to 3,354 and from 10,204 contractors to 8,516.

How NASA allots more than $1 billion annually in contracts is changing, as well, as NASA buys more off-the-shelf technology from commercial firms instead of having it tailored to fit and shifts mission control operations to private firms, Goldin said.

"We're expecting to see different kinds of companies winning contracts," adds Goddard director Al Diaz. "We want to partner with the non-aerospace companies, we'd like to partner with the information companies," he said. We want people to look at NASA as a place to partner, not to have cost-plus, fixed-fee contracts. NASA is not a place to make a profit by working with government tax dollars, NASA is a place for intellectual exchange, Goldin said.

Later this year, NASA intends to contract out all of its mission control operations in a massive multiyear deal that could total $5 million to $10 million, industry analysts say. This could cause wholesale changes in how NASA contracts are distributed.

"They want to outsource mundane [control] activities so they can concentrate on the advanced, cutting-edge R&D, said Peter Stahl, manager of the space and high-technology group at KPMG Peat Marwick LLP in Washington.

"We're going to have a nice battle there," Logsdon said. "Ultimately, the winner will run space operations."

"Ultimately, it will take civil servants out of the loop," Stahl said.

It isn't clear how such consolidation may reduce Goddard's current share of space flight operations control. Stahl and other analysts believe the changes will hurt Goddard.

Others predict Maryland's congressional delegation will ward off significant cuts.

"The essence of the problem is political," said one area aerospace executive who did not want to be identified. "There are huge numbers of people at these centers, both with NASA and its private contractors, many of them highly paid professional people. No senator or representative wants them to leave."

Logsdon said he is betting on Goldin: "There's going to be resistance to it, but I think he's riding a wave."

NASA CONTRACT AWARDS

IN THE D.C. AREA

For fiscal 1996 In millions

AlliedSignal $233.8

Hughes Aerospace 180.3

Computer Sciences 61.6

Orbital Sciences 57.7

Lockheed Martin 49.3

Jackson & Tull 33.7

Swales & Associates 33.5

Silicon Graphics 30.7

Boeing 29.4

CTA 28.2

Government Micro Resources 22.3

McDonnell Douglas 22.2

NOTE: Contracts over $25,000

SOURCE: General Services Administration