NASA'S NEW TOP BOSS TO VISIT DRYDEN.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - NASA's new top administrator - a former federal budget official - is due to visit Dryden Flight Research Center within three weeks, but officials there aren't sure what to expect from his tenure.

Sean O'Keefe, who took over the space agency Jan. 2 and must find ways to pay for billions of dollars in cost overruns on the space station, told reporters last week that he doesn't know if some NASA field centers will need to be closed to save money.

``He's flying at 50,000 feet taking an overall look at the agency,'' said Bob Jacobs, a spokesman at NASA headquarters. ``He has said everything is on the table.''

O'Keefe visited NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia last week and is scheduled to visit Johnson Space Center in Houston this week. No exact date for his Dryden visit has been set, but it appears the visit will occur in the last week of January.

O'Keefe is expected to spend one day at Dryden, NASA officials said.

O'Keefe will spend the next several months learning about the agency and developing a strategic plan, officials say.

NASA officials said it is too early in O'Keefe's tenure for plans to be formulated in regards to Dryden's future. O'Keefe also has not indicated what his priorities for aeronautics research, Dryden's forte.

``Nothing has fallen out yet,'' said Dryden spokesman Alan Brown. ``He's in a listening mode.''

NASA officials said O'Keefe plans to model his management philosophy on President George W. Bush's management agenda.

The president's management agenda mentions in passing a controversial congressional statute that hampered former NASA administrator Dan Goldin's plans for Dryden.

Goldin envisioned Dryden as a center of excellence for aeronautics and wanted to consolidate the agency's aircraft operations at Dryden.

NASA did move two modified U-2 aircraft and a modified DC-8 from the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., to Dryden, but Congress passed a law blocking the agency from moving aircraft east of the Mississippi River to the High Desert.

The president's management agenda cites that statute as an example of managers having their hands tied in efforts to trim cuts.

NASA officials said they do not know if O'Keefe will seek a repeal of that statute.

Dryden has a long history in aeronautics research, dating back to the 1940s when a handful of engineers came to Edwards to prepare for tests of the X-1 rocket plane later flown by Chuck Yeager.

The center has worked on such projects as the X-15 rocket plane, the space shuttle program and unmanned aircraft, including the recent altitude- record setting flight of a solar-powered aircraft.

Dryden has about 570 full-time civil service workers and about 740 personnel who work for private companies under contract.

Current projects include the X-38, a wingless aircraft being tested to help develop a space station lifeboat; the X-43, a program aiming to develop an air-breathing hypersonic engine; and the Intelligent Flight Control System, an effort to develop a flight control system that will allow damaged aircraft to land safely.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

The X-38 space lifeboat prototype, one of many projects ongoing at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, drops from a B-52 for a high-altitude test in this Dec. 13 photo.