U.S. Representative Paul Broun, Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, recently sent a letter to the Government Accounting Office requesting that it conduct an investigation into NASA’s export control program. He bases the request on “recent allegations of export control violations” and on the fact that NASA relies on “new and sophisticated technology.”

The letter does not specify the alleged export control violations by NASA. But it was probably referring to charges made last May that NASA gave foreign nationals unlicensed access to its Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, charges which are also being investigated on the Senate side of the Hill.

Among the sensitive technologies used by NASA and cited by Broun in his letter is its “use of telescopes to explore the universe.” Libraries are duly cautioned to make sure that they do not loan copies of Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius to any foreign nationals without first obtaining an export license lest they incur the wrath of Rep. Broun.

Representative Braun’s concern with telescopes and foreigners may well be related to his statement, as reported by Fox News, that the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution are “lies straight from the pit of hell.”

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