Navy limits nominations to space program

Officials cite need to meet wartime duties

Dominic L. Gorie, a retired Navy captain, prepared for a training session at the Johnson Space Center. He's one of many members of the service who have been part of the space program. (NASA VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES)

NEW YORK - For what may be the first time since the inception of the US space program, the Navy is restricting nominations to the astronaut corps. The move comes nearly 50 years after Alan B. Shepard, a naval aviator, became the first American in space.

The cutback, Navy officials say, is taking effect as the service tries to retain the expertise it needs to fulfill its wartime obligations while experiencing an overall decline in its numbers. A message from Vice Admiral J.C. Harvey Jr. last month stated that applications for Navy nominations to the space program from 10 specialties would not be accepted "due to critical inventory shortfalls and/or priority global war on terrorism skill set requirements."

Those groups include the special warfare forces known as SEALs, certain engineering groups and experts in explosive ordnance disposal, as well as permanent military professors and public affairs officers.

George W.S. Abbey, a former NASA official who wielded control over the astronaut office during much of his long tenure at the agency, which lasted from 1964 to 2002, said "the Navy is taking a position that adversely affects the country's ability to have a vital and ongoing space program."

Lieutenant Commander William Marks, a Navy spokesman, said he could find no previous restriction on naval applications to the astronaut corps, but insisted that the move in no way diminished the service's commitment to NASA.

"Officially, we are a very enthusiastic supporter of the NASA program," Marks said. "We always have been and still are."

But, he said, the Navy has been trying to hold on to its service communities in wartime, and it would be hypocritical to tell those communities that they are desperately needed, "but we can still let you go."

"We don't want to lose credibility with our own people," he said.

One applicant who was affected by the decision, Lieutenant Commander Michael Runkle, executive officer of the Navy Experimental Diving Unit in Panama City Beach, Fla., said he was "a little bitter" about the new rules. Runkle said he joined the Navy in part because he had hoped it would lead to a career in space, even though he knew the chances of acceptance were slim.

"It's kind of like winning the lottery," he said. "You live your life as you do, but you buy a ticket every once in a while."

He applied unsuccessfully twice before, and "I'm under no great illusion that I would have been chosen this time," though he said his application was stronger. With his expertise in ordnance disposal, however, he cannot apply again under the new rules.

"I'm told I'm not allowed to buy a lottery ticket," he said, "just on the off chance that I win."

In the past 15 years, the Navy has nominated as many as 211 and as few as 105 candidates for consideration by NASA, though groups from earlier years numbered as low as 34.

The Navy "has always been a good provider of folks" for NASA, said Duane Ross, manager for astronaut candidate selection and training at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The service has been represented in every astronaut class - they are chosen every couple of years - that the agency has selected.

"Just about every mission, you can pick out some top-notch Navy folks," Ross said, from Shepard's historic flight to the most recent mission of the space shuttle, commanded by Dominic L. Gorie, a retired captain.

Although NASA is a civilian agency, service members have long been prized as astronaut candidates because of the skills they bring to the program, including their ability to work in teams and under difficult conditions.

William M. Shepherd, a retired astronaut and a retired captain in the Navy who served as the first commander aboard the International Space Station, said Navy experience provided long-term expedition training, with the kind of independent, flexible style of operation that prepared astronauts for long-duration missions aboard the station and in future planned voyages to the moon and Mars.

"The era that we're in now in space activities is becoming more like voyaging at sea than flying in the air," Shepherd said.

Representatives of the Air Force, the Army, and the Marine Corps said their services were not restricting astronaut applications.