Griffin on Congress, White House changes
17.12.2006 17:41 Space - Source: Space Politics
Griffin on Congress, White House changes
The St. Petersburg Times (the one in Florida, not Russia) has a brief but interesting interview with NASA administrator Mike Griffin in Sunday's issue. Besides talking about the lunar base announcement earlier this month and Mars exploration plans, the paper asks Griffin about what the change in party control of Congress means to NASA. Griffin gives a standard reply:
I would observe of course that we didn't get the… very one-sided majority… without plenty of Democrats pitching in. NASA has not historically been a partisan agency…(There are enough ellipses in that quote to make one wonder what else Griffin said.) The Times then asks whether he thinks Bush's successor might change NASA's overall exploration plans. "I would hope that doesn't happen," Griffin responded, adding that "the choices are pretty stark", based on what the Columbia Accident Investigation Board noted in its report:
And then they went on to say (that) if it's going to be done, that the goals ought to be worthy of the cost and the risk and the difficulty of the enterprise. That's rational. And then they added that a human space program, a human space program which dead-ends at the space station is not, does not qualify. That was a rather thoughtful piece in their report…So we need to go beyond the space station if we're going to do it at all. Now I personally do not envision any president or any Congress putting an end to the U.S. manned spaceflight program. I hope I do not live to see such a thing…
Griffin added that the "geometry of the solar system" means that the next destination for human spaceflight is the Moon, followed by Mars. "So when I look at all that and mush it up together what I come out with is a future president or a future Congress may say go a little faster or go a little slower, but I don't see the rational grounds by which anyone is going to say pick another goal."
Posted by Jeff at December 17, 2006 11:53 AM
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