Posted on 05/26/2005 10:07:29 AM PDT by BenLurkin
EDWARDS AFB - Calling Dryden Flight Research Center "a magical place," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin assured a future role for the agency's historic center of flight research. "Dryden is an important center with an important role," he said. "We're not even thinking about not having Dryden. We're not going to let anything bad to happen to it."
Forty days into his tenure at the head of the space agency, Griffin visited Dryden on Tuesday, learning of ongoing projects and speaking with center employees.
"This is the place where real things happen in the world of flight," Griffin said, noting he has had extensive experience with the center and its activities in the past.
NASA's renewed emphasis on manned space exploration, as outlined by President George W. Bush's plan for a return to the moon and journeys to Mars and beyond, has led many to believe the agency is abandoning the first "A" in NASA - aeronautics.
Despite requesting less funding for aeronautics research in his 2006 budget, the president's new vision for space exploration is a redirection of the agency's manned space flight efforts, not its aeronautics or science programs, Griffin said.
Most of Dryden's work - and funding - comes from the aeronautics directorate of NASA, which is seeing a smaller piece of the agency pie.
While the overall NASA budget saw an unusual increase this year, funding for aeronautics programs decreased, with additional decreases forecast in the next two years. Such programs account for 75% of Dryden's work.
Dryden's aeronautics budget is expected to drop about 20% in the next two years, from $161 million this year to $130 million in 2007, then flattening out at approximately that level through 2010.
Along with the cuts in agency-supplied funding comes a reduction in the civil service and contractor work forces.
Dryden's civil service work force now stands at approximately 515 employees, down more than 90 since the end of November.
The proposed cuts to aeronautical research funding - and the corresponding personnel cuts at centers like Dryden, Langley Research Center in Virginia, Glenn Research Center in Ohio and Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. - have drawn heated opposition in Congress and elsewhere.
The House Appropriations subcommittee that governs NASA's funding recently increased NASA's aeronautical funding by $54 million over the president's request, bringing it back to the level enacted this year. The final budget has yet to be passed by Congress.
"We're trying to be responsive. We would be deaf not to have heard the complaints," Griffin said. "We will work with Congress to implement whatever direction they finally pick."
He also voiced support for a proposed national aeronautics policy being discussed by some members of Congress.
"I think aviation and space are strategically important to the United States. We helped invent these fields," Griffin said.
"(This country has) a 100-year-old tradition of primacy in aviation and space. I want to extend and maintain that as much as anything in the world. It is important to our nation, our culture and our world."
Griffin has initiated an extensive review of the agency's programs to help determine priorities for funding. Until that review is complete, the administrator did not want to speculate on the status of individual programs.
"I don't want to make quick, stupid mistakes," he said, "but we will set priorities."
Strategy will be set with input from the heads of NASA's mission directorates and center directors.
"We'll make real clear what those priorities are and where we can go with the money we have," Griffin said.
While admitting that changes in the agency - especially cuts to certain areas of the work force - will be painful, they are necessary to ensure NASA remains viable and continues to do work deemed useful to the country and the taxpayers, Griffin said.
"NASA is not a jobs program," he said, but the agency should be on the frontier of aerospace, a constantly moving boundary that will inevitably leave some behind.
Research into hypersonics - spurred by last year's successful flights of the X-43A research vehicle from Dryden - is one area Griffin would like to see included in NASA's aeronautical research projects. Funding for such research was not included in the president's budget request.
Regardless of what happens in NASA's aeronautics efforts, Dryden has a role in the new direction for manned spaceflight.
"Where else are we going to do approach and landing tests for the crew exploration vehicle, whatever shape it takes?" Griffin said.
Dryden also likely will play a part in atmospheric testing for the new CEV, seen as a replacement to the aging space shuttle fleet, set for retirement at the end of the decade, once construction of the international space station is complete.
However, it is still too early in the program to know what activities may be sent to Dryden, he said.
Griffin has endorsed speeding development of the CEV to close the gap between the shuttles' retirement in 2010 and the original flight date of 2014 for the CEV.
NASA ping
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.