Space Council Official Who Led Effort to Curb NASA to Resign

The controversial staff director of the National Space Council, the Cabinet-level agency that sets the nation’s space policy, is stepping down after a three-year tenure marked by calls for better management at NASA and a push for smaller, less-expensive space projects.

Mark J. Albrecht, 41, who was a national security aide to then-Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), was widely viewed as one of the principal architects of the council’s efforts to curb the appetite of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for more long-range, expensive space endeavors.

At the same time, Albrecht strongly championed what could turn out to be the most expensive space mission in history--President Bush’s call for a $400-billion effort to return to the moon and send astronauts to Mars sometime in the next century.

Albrecht, who will leave his $119,300-a-year job on June 1, said Bush is expected to name a replacement soon. Albrecht declined to discuss his plans, but sources close to the council said that he will join a private consulting firm.

Albrecht said he is moving on because “the goals we had set for the council have been achieved . . . I think we certainly have raised the nation’s attention on space the way it probably hasn’t been raised in 15 years.”

Albrecht’s tenure at the space council was often controversial. He played a key role in the panel’s push for the resignation of NASA Administrator Richard H. Truly in February and for Truly’s replacement with former TRW executive Daniel S. Goldin, who supports the council’s call for “leaner, meaner” projects.

Truly was believed to oppose many of the council’s initiatives, among them a plan for overhauling the way NASA selects projects, oversees their costs and manages their operation.

Several NASA officials and members of Congress have suggested that Goldin’s selection was an attempt by Vice President Dan Quayle and Albrecht to directly extend the space council’s authority over NASA projects. Goldin, however, has insisted he will chart an independent course.