If I was in charge of NASA among the things I would do would be to

- Cancel the Moon part of Moon/Mars and re-evaluate the Mars part.
- Fund and fly experiments like Samuel Ting’s for the ISS. The ISS is eating much of the space budget, and yet is itself starved for cash to run experiments, some of which are already built and waiting to fly. This is incoherent.
- Focus more attention on asteroid exploration, as that can be done relatively easily by humans and machines, and promises a potentially large economic payoff. If we can’t go to NEAs, we can’t go to Mars, so we should do this first.
- Look at a number of the recently canceled or delayed projects such as SIM, and see if it would be cost effective to resurrect some of them.
- Put more R&D money into futuristic transportation ideas such as space elevators, space tethers, etc.

The views of the NASA administrator on global warming science are potentially relevant because (a) it’s science and NASA should be on the mainstream side of science issues; (b) NASA is not only a rocket shop – NASA supports climate studies and there have previously been instances of political interference with NASA scientists on this issue. FWIW, my guess is that Griffin was being politically careful wrt the Bush admin, and that his personal views on global warming are unknown. However, he can’t play politics and then demand to be above review when the new boss comes to town.

I don’t agree with you: The views of the chief administrator of NASA should reflect the best current science.

Inasmuch as there is an exobiological component to NASA’s work, I would also be concerned if the individual in that role were a creationist or “Intelligent Designer”.

If he’s got an agenda motivated by anti-scientific or economic ideology, or wants to preserve an atmosphere of opacity, he should go – regardless of what Obama wants to do. It’s not necessarily about Obama: Griffin can succeed at being unqualified without further assistance.

As for people on the Moon, consider this:

Sometime between next week and next decade, the first terrestrial planet in the “habitable zone” of another star will be discovered.

As soon as that happens, the number one scientific question around will be, “is there life there?”.

In order to answer that question intelligently, we need to understand how terrestrial planets form. And in order to understand terrestrial planets, we need to go back to the moon.

In the time frame of the next decade, humans will still be better field scientists than robots. So sending humans to do the field work will be the most robust way to get this done.

If Obama was dead-set against manned spaceflight, he wouldn’t have bothered to “look under the hood”

You don’t look under the hood of a car that is being sent to the wreckers.

You only look under the hood if you want to fix something.

A more important question is this:
Is the NASA director so wedded to the Ares I rocket that he is willing to jeopardize the entire VSE to keep it? Ares I will be the 3rd US 20-35 tonne system available, if it is developed. Its underperformance has already delayed the development of the rest of the Constellation program, by requiring weight reduction measures and redesign on the orion capsule (including elimination of terrestrial landing capability and other safety systems).

So the willingness of the transition team to be interesting in the details of the program is probably a good thing, making the director’s alleged opposition all the more baffling.

Nobody cares about Griffin’s views on global warming, they’re not pertinent. Do you ask your garbageman what he thinks of climate change? Your hairdresser? Your auto mechanic?

What matters here is that Obama wants to eliminate all progress that has been made the last eight years, and start on new pet projects, just like Clinton and Bush Jr. did and unlike how LBJ and Nixon did.

Lawrence B. Crowell

OK, how about this:

If the director of NASA is getting mired in the intricate details of rocket design then he isn’t doing his job.

He’s doing the job of his engineers, his contractors, his programmers, and the rest of his technical staff.

His job is to know the people who have all the details, and to connect them with the transition team and enough education staff to be able to translate the technical minutiae into English. His job is to co-ordinate and facilitate so that the rocket designers can design the best, most reliable and cost-effective rocket they can make without interference from him or anyone above him.

His job is to transmit the details of this work to congress and the incoming administration so that the reasons for the choices that have been made thusfar are obvious and clear.

If you mean his point that his scientific expertise far surpasses Lori Garver’s, that would be relevant if she were criticizing his method of accomplishing a goal (manned spaceflight) that we all agreed was a worthy goal. Once the objective is clear, let the most qualified figure out the science and the engineering.

But perhaps what she is questioning is the value of the objective in relation to the cost. That decision involves value judgments, not technical skill.

The article claims that Griffin is interfering with the transition team’s information-gathering. I am always suspicious of this type of obstructionism. If you believe in your conclusions, I would think you would want as much transparency as possible. The more right you are, the more the facts will support your case.

This guy has more engineering degrees than anyone I know. If Obama wants to send a representative to talk to him, that’s fine. But that representative needs to take Griffin’s on his word. He may work for George Bush, but he is a scientist and has the best interests of NASA at heart.

Obama really ought to go talk to Griffin himself.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1866045,00.html?cnn=yes

“The mere fact that the story is making the rounds reflects the very real friction between NASA and the transition team — which has sparked a groundswell of support among space agency employees to keep the boss. Within NASA, there is a real concern that while the Obama campaign rode the call for change to a thumping victory in November, change is precisely what the space agency does not need.

…

“We’ve been moving in the right direction since the Columbia accident [in 2003],” says Chris Shank, NASA’s chief of strategic communications. “The concern is that we’ll lose that.” Lately, that concern appears well-placed.

The Obama team picked Garver to run the NASA transition, in part because of her deep pedigree and long history at the space agency, which saw her climb to the rank of associate administrator. But Garver started as a PAO — NASA-speak for a public affairs officer — and never got involved in the nuts and bolts of building rockets… Garver’s lack of engineering cred is especially surprising in light of the eggheads with whom Obama has been surrounding himself — most recently, Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Chu, who has reportedly been tapped to be Secretary of Energy. Garver is also not thought to be much of a fan of Griffin — who is an engineer — nor to be sold on the plans for the new moon program. What she and others are said to be considering is to scrap the plans for the Ares 1 — which is designed exclusively to carry humans — and replace it with Atlas V and Delta IV boosters, which are currently used to launch satellites but could be redesigned, or “requalified,” for humans. Griffin hates that idea, and firmly believes the Atlas and Delta are unsafe for people. One well-placed NASA source who asked not to be named reports that as much as Griffin wants to keep his job, he’ll walk away from it if he’s made to put his astronauts on top of those rockets.”

Then they could haul space shuttles or launch vehicles up the side (possibly with a compensating weight on the other side to minimize distortion) and launch them with the first four or five miles (of densest air) taken care of.

Even more ambitious, if the structure could withstand the forces, would be a vertical rail gun, with a detachable frame on the craft being launched, so it could achieve a high upward velocity before even igniting its engines.

I gather Cape Kennedy was chosen so that aborted launches could fall harmlessly into the ocean. But what are the chances of one hitting a populated area in Arizona or New Mexico? Even if it did, it’s just damned bad luck and no one can do anything about that.

They could also build a telescope at the top of the pylon, and take advantage of the clear air. It would need a heat-proof dome though obviously.

Is this NASA job open to foreigners? I’d soon shake up their ideas!

Bill Clinton cancelled a lot of progress, and under him there was a lot of focus on JIMO, the Jupiter Icy Moons Observer, which would have been a great idea. It was to rely on high energy nuclear electricity, increasing scientific capacity. Under Bush II, great ideas like JIMO, and also TPF, SIM and Sofia have gone by the wayside, to focus on the ideas of appeal to his people, going back to the moon and mars, permanently.

Now Obama is going to cancel that progress, and start some new ideas from scratch, which might be very good ideas in and of themselves exactly like the Clinton and Bush II directions. And then they can accumulate some progress and consume $50 billion, and then be cancelled in 8 years by the next president whose team will pursue its own vision. Nothing will ever get done with these childish competitive attitudes.

The best bet would be for Obama to allow them to continue on their present path, and to give a marginal increase in funding to do other things.