Outside Experts to Review NASA Status : Space: The action follows a series of embarrassing debacles. Administration officials insist there is not a loss of confidence in the agency.

Prompted by a series of embarrassing debacles that have eroded support for expensive U.S. space programs, the Bush Administration on Monday decided to appoint an independent panel of outside experts to explore “the future long-term direction” of the federal space agency.

Administration officials insisted repeatedly that the decision to appoint an independent panel does not indicate any lack of confidence in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“We’re not changing anything,” Vice President Dan Quayle told reporters after a meeting with NASA Administrator Richard H. Truly. Quayle denied reports published over the weekend that the National Space Council, which he heads, is planning a wholesale restructuring of the space agency.

“Space continues to be a top priority,” Quayle added.

Privately, however, officials conceded that the new review has been prompted by a costly and embarrassing series of NASA failures in recent weeks: the grounding of the space shuttle fleet because of hydrogen leaks, new estimates of vastly higher maintenance costs for the proposed orbiting space station and the continuing problems of the Hubble space telescope.

“This is not a ‘who shot John’ investigation of these screw-ups,” said one senior White House aide. But, he added, support for NASA on Capitol Hill has “eroded” in recent weeks.

“When you have a lot of controversy,” the aide added, “an outside look might be a good idea.”

Truly put the best face on the situation, saying in a written statement that he was pleased that Quayle had “expressed his confidence in NASA.”

After the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, then-President Ronald Reagan appointed a special outside panel to investigate NASA. That panel, however, was charged with a specific task--determining what had caused the explosion and what could be done to avoid another one. The current panel, by contrast, has a much more diffuse mission--to “consider the future long-term direction of the space program.”

Critics were quick to note that the new task force’s mission sounded much like what Quayle’s space council already was supposed to be doing.

Quayle and the space council have been working on long-term plans “for over a year,” Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) chided. NASA does not need “yet another group” to study its future, said Gore, who has conducted a series of hearings on the problems of the $1.5-billion Hubble telescope.

Truly, who will appoint the members of the new task force, said that he expects the panel will have between 6 and 10 members from industry and government. The panel is expected to report back to Quayle in late fall, officials said.

The Administration has been under strong pressure to take some step to preserve Bush’s plans to expand the nation’s space exploration program. NASA’s problems have been the subject of repeated high-level meetings within the Administration, including three meetings between Truly and Quayle in the last week, officials said.

Congress already has cut deeply into funds that the Administration had requested for space programs and Administration officials fear that NASA’s repeated problems will make the space agency an inviting target for even more cuts as Congress and Bush continue to negotiate over ways to cut the federal deficit.

The Administration had requested a major increase in NASA funds, one of the few increases Bush and Budget Director Richard G. Darman allowed in their spending plans for the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.