President George W. Bush has sent NASA a message about costs by nominating a budget expert with no aerospace or scientific background as the agency's administrator.

The nominee, Sean O'Keefe, a former secretary of the Navy and chief financial officer with the Department of Defense, was appointed as deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget in March. There he scrutinized overspending in the International Space Station programme, which he termed a “management and financial crisis”.

If his appointment is confirmed, as expected, by the Senate, O'Keefe will have to implement reforms he recommended in his previous position, making working within budgets as important as technical excellence.

John Pike, a former head of space policy with the Federation of American Scientists, says that the Bush administration's policy is centred on the need to control the space station's budget. “The space programme has not been a priority for them,” he says. “It was on the backburner before September and it isn't even on the stove now.”

“It's an interesting choice,” observes John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington, DC. “They are taking someone out of the centre of the Bush administration and sending him over to NASA to fix some perceived problems.”

Scientists are not sure what to make of the nomination. “I was quite startled to begin with,” says Anneila Sargent of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, president of the American Astronomical Society. “But on reflection I have come to see that it might have very positive aspects.” Because space science has traditionally managed its finances well, she says, it may find favour with a budget-conscious chief.

But Sargent is concerned that budget issues could override scientific and technological arguments altogether. “I think there has to be a balance,” she says. “We can't do everything we want, but we can't be told that we can't do anything.”