Space Program

Your editorial (Jan. 27), “What’s Ahead in Space,” is another example of “cheap-shot” journalism. You state that next month’s shuttle mission, with Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah) along for the ride, “will be more of a public-relations show than a program necessity,” referring of course, to the senator’s presence. I beg to differ.

Garn sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee and he is the chairman on the subcommittee for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and independent agencies, of which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is included.

His responsibilities include observing not only Veterans Adminisration hospitals and such, but also the high-profile NASA program, which is $8 billion-plus of our tax dollars. I am pleased to see a public figure monitoring this program.

Already Garn has uncovered cost-saving items that would have gone undetected had he not been involved in training for the mission. During the mission he will not be bureaucratic baggage, but will perform vital medical tasks working toward a solution of the space-sickness phenomenon.

MARK ZAMARIN

Thousand Oaks