Posted on 03/12/2005 7:27:44 PM PST by anymouse
President Bush on Friday picked physicist Michael Griffin to lead NASA as it prepares to resume space shuttle flights and tries to meet the White House goal of sending astronauts back to the moon in the decade ahead.
If confirmed by the Senate, Griffin would become the space agency's 11th administrator.
Members of Congress immediately praised the president's choice, as did John Logsdon, director of George Washington University's space policy institute.
"I've known Mike for a long time and have a great deal of respect for him as a kind of innovative thinker, real enthusiast full of energy," Logsdon said.
"His biggest challenge is convincing Congress that the president's vision should be a national vision, that it's the right way for the program to proceed," Logsdon added.
Sean O'Keefe left NASA last month after three years in the top job to become chancellor of Louisiana State University. Since then, his deputy, former space shuttle commander Frederick Gregory, has been serving as acting administrator.
For the past year, Griffin has headed the space department at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. It is the lab's second-largest department and specializes in projects for both NASA and the military.
Griffin, 55, has a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and five master's degrees, in aerospace science, electrical engineering, applied physics, civil engineering and business administration. His bachelor's degree is in physics.
"President Bush's choice for the new administrator of NASA is the right one," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "Dr. Griffin will propel NASA into the next phase of America's mission in space."
The chairman of the House Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert, R-NY, said Griffin knows NASA "inside and out" and added that he is looking forward to working with him "at this critical time for NASA."
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., also welcomed Griffin, noting, "He has the right combination of experience in industry, academia and government service."
Mikulski is among those pushing for NASA to reinstate one last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Griffin will have the opportunity, if he so chooses, to reverse O'Keefe's decision to cancel any space shuttle visit to Hubble.
O'Keefe had argued it would be too dangerous in the wake of the Columbia accident to send a shuttle to the aging Hubble. He also supported the president's elimination of funding to develop a robotic repairman to send to the prestigious space observatory, in the proposed 2006 budget.
Before taking over the space department at Johns Hopkins, Griffin was president and chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, a CIA-bankrolled venture-capital organization. Earlier in his career, Griffin worked at NASA as chief engineer and as deputy for technology at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.
His earlier stint at NASA was during the administration of Bush's father.
Last year, Griffin joined other experts to assess the president's new exploration initiative for NASA, which involves retiring the shuttle by 2010, sending astronauts to the moon by 2020, and then mounting human expeditions to Mars and beyond. The report pushed for an even quicker retirement of the shuttle in order to accelerate work on a spaceship that could carry astronauts to the international space station and ultimately to the moon.
YAY! GO BUSH!
ping
What effect do you think this will have on the Hubble decision?
Michael Griffin, a former chief engineer at NASA who has also worked on missile defense systems, was named on Friday as President Bush's choice to head the U.S. space agency.
Griffin would succeed Sean O'Keefe, who presided over the National Aeronautics and Space Administration during the troubled period following the midair breakup of the shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003.
The accident killed all seven astronauts and brought criticism from investigators, who blamed NASA's "broken safety culture."
Griffin is head of the space department at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, which works on civilian and military space programs, including missile and air defense and national security analysis.
Previously, he was president of In-Q-Tel, the CIA's private venture capital arm, and worked at Orbital Sciences Corp., which develops rockets and missiles.
Earlier in his career, Griffin served as NASA's chief engineer and as deputy for technology at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, founded in 1984 to develop a space-based anti-missile defense popularly known as "Star Wars." The program was abandoned in 1993.
The announcement Bush intends to nominate Griffin drew quick bipartisan praise from members of both houses of Congress and from the space-boosting Planetary Society.
PRAISE FROM CAPITOL HILL
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat whose state is home to the Applied Physics Laboratory and two NASA outposts that deal with the Hubble Space Telescope, said Griffin had "the right combination of experience in industry, academia and government service."
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a New York Republican who heads the U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee, and Rep. Ken Calvert, a California Republican who chairs a panel on space and aeronautics, also gave their support in a statement.
"He has broad expertise, knows NASA inside and out, and is an imaginative and creative thinker and leader," Boehlert said. "We look very forward to working with Dr. Griffin at this critical time for NASA."
The shuttle fleet has not flown since the Columbia accident and Bush has set out a vision that would replace the remaining shuttles with a new space vehicle meant to take Americans back to the moon and eventually to Mars.
Shuttle Discovery is slated for launch in May on the first flight incorporating safety upgrades recommended by investigators who probed the Columbia tragedy.
The immediate cause of the accident was a breach in Columbia's wing caused by foam insulation that fell from the shuttle's external fuel tank on liftoff. The breach allowed superheated gas to enter the craft during reentry, tearing the ship apart.
Investigators also stressed underlying causes for the accident, including schedule pressure that may have trumped safety concerns and a failure to get information about possible problems up the chain of command at NASA.
Wes Huntress, a former NASA associate administrator who now heads the Planetary Society, praised Griffin, saying, "He resonates with the president's new vision for space and will add a down-to-earth insistence on logic and realism."
Since O'Keefe's departure in February to become chancellor of Louisiana State University, NASA's acting director has been former astronaut Fred Gregory. (Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)
Space policy ping
That's the ticket. ENERGY.
None what so ever, but don't tell Sen. Mulkulski. :)
Intersting how Reuters has to point out that he was a missile defense verteran. None of the other stories mention that part.
Correction. Mention it in the headline, or early in their stories.
Hey - why didn't he appoint one of them womyn Harvard Scientists? They're pretty durn smart too y'know. Just ask 'em.
OK, Babs. You want to extend the make work jobs for your constituents in the pork barrel HST Institute rather than accelerate the deployment of the Next Generation (James Webb) Telescope? Fine. You better line up all of the dims, including the luddites and Bush haters, behind the Moon/Mars vision.
Now.
We will have astronauts volunteer for any old stupid mission and risk their lives for your idiotic "constituent happiness plan." They always do. There will always be folks in the program who are willing to risk their lives to get out of the gravity well.
Hell, if they'd have me (which they won't), I'd volunteer.
You damn well better make it worth the risk to their lives.
I agree. I would rather go to Mars rather fix the Hubble Telescope.
-snip-
“What is needed is to retire the Shuttle Orbiter, and its expensive support infrastructure,” Griffin wrote. “It simply does not serve the needs of exploration and it is too expensive, to logistically fragile, and insufficiently safe for continued use as a low Earth orbit transport vehicle.”
“If you truly believe that the shuttle can fly all 28 planned station assembly flights between now and 2010, then it’s unlikely that the switch would pay off,” he said last November. “But if you believe that it will take until 2014 or later, then it is quite logical to ask if we could save time and money by integrating some space station assembly payloads onto larger expendables.”
Griffin has also stated his preference that United States use existing space shuttle hardware, such as the main engines, solid rocket booster, and external tank, as the foundation for building the new heavy lift launcher NASA may need to return to the Moon.
http://www.space.com/news/griffin_nasa_050311.html
The more I read about this guy the more I like him.
Give these joyboys a few Tonka Toys to keep 'em busy and quiet for a few years--at least we'll be able to retire the Shuttle crates and maybe the Station, too, in the deal. Let the old fossil fliers feel important. and give lots of quavering speeches..that's all they've got left in their swiftly declining years.
That old historical program from the 80s? Time to move on. Webb, CEV, new stuff.
A BDB proponent. Good deal.
Another thing in the mission statement, Moon Mars and Beyond, was that lack of private property rights is going to stymie private initiative in space development. This does not concern NASA, but ought to make all private space developers in the world spit up their formula.
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