The report by NASA's inspector general recommended the agency's managers do a better job of realistically estimating the number of spaceflights and evaluate whether jobs now performed by astronauts could be performed by others.

"The significant costs associated with training and maintaining the astronaut corps indicate that great care should be taken in determining whether the astronaut corps needs to be augmented," the report said.

"The astronaut corps should be sized so that the number of astronauts is sufficient to perform duties that can be performed only by astronauts, but is not so large that astronauts are hired to staff tasks that could be performed more cost-effectively by non-astronauts."

The report was scheduled for release in February, but was delayed by the February 1 loss of the shuttle Columbia and does not take into account the deaths of the seven Columbia astronauts in the disaster.

The report found that 53 of the 116 astronauts active in December were still waiting for their first spaceflight, partly because NASA had overestimated the number of shuttle flights, but also because of a tendency to hire astronauts for jobs that could be performed more cheaply by other specialists.

NASA has hired 18 groups of astronauts since the original seven were chosen in 1959. Since 1978, when the first shuttle astronauts were selected, 237 have undergone the rigorous training for shuttle flights and for serving on the International Space Station.

The agency recently announced it would select a new class of astronauts in 2004, even though shuttle flights are unlikely to resume before then.

SPACE.WIRE