Tweet
NASA Official Questions Agency’s Focus on the Shuttle
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Dec. 8 — NASA’s administrator, Michael D. Griffin, says the current period of space exploration will come to be seen as a mistake.
Michael D. Griffin, NASA’s administrator, right, has criticized past policy decisions that guided the agency’s emphasis on the shuttle program.
“Viewed from the point of history several decades out,” he said in an interview, “the period where the United States retreated from the Moon and quite deliberately focused only on low Earth orbit will be seen, to me, a mistake.”
Mr. Griffin has made similar comments before, notably a year ago in an interview with USA Today. This time, his remarks came as he waited for Thursday’s down-to-the-wire effort to launch the shuttle on a 12-day mission to rewire the International Space Station. The liftoff was scrubbed at the last minute because of weather concerns.
Mission managers decided not to try to launch on Friday, when weather conditions were predicted to be too cloudy and windy for a safe launching. They expect to try again at 8:47 p.m. on Saturday, though the decision about whether to proceed will not be made until weather officers give their prediction early that morning.
Launching opportunities extend to Dec. 26, though space agency officials hope to get the shuttle to orbit long before then.
Mr. Griffin was appointed to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2005, a year after President Bush announced his “vision for space exploration,” which calls for returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020 and then moving on to send humans to Mars. Mr. Griffin has from the start been an enthusiastic proponent of that plan.
But it has put him in a delicate situation, as he has shifted NASA financing to the Moon initiative, while moving to complete the space station and shut down the shuttle program by 2010, and cutting back on its science activities. And in doing so, he has occasionally expressed doubts about the wisdom underlying the nation’s decision to build the shuttle and the station.
After his remarks a year ago, he issued an apologetic memorandum to NASA employees.
But if there was any discomfort in expressing such opinions once again at the Kennedy Space Center in the midst of preparations for launching, Mr. Griffin showed none. He said in the interview that his comments had been broadly misconstrued as a slap against the people who build and maintain the shuttle and space station, and emphasized that he admired the people of NASA who took on enormous challenges to create the shuttle and station.
The fault is not NASA’s, he said, adding: “The space shuttle is a response to a policy mistake — it isn’t the mistake. The mistake was tearing up all the infrastructure that we built for Apollo and saying, ‘let’s just focus on low Earth orbit.’ ”
The plan to return to the Moon by 2020 has been met with some skepticism, especially among those who doubt that the space agency can take on such a daunting project within its $17 billion annual budget. Dr. Griffin said that NASA could do the job — and could reach the moon even more quickly, with more money.
“I’m tempted to say, ‘Why the skepticism?’ ” he said, adding, “but in fairness, NASA’s recent history has not had the on-time, on-budget performance characteristic of the Apollo era. And I’m trying to restore that.”
The fact that Democrats won the majority of seats in Congress in the November election, and other political changes that will occur over time, should have little effect on the plan, he said.
“Unless you believe that a future U.S. president or a future U.S. Congress actually wants to cancel the U.S. spaceflight program, then I actually do not perceive a big threat from changing administrations and changing Congresses,” he said. “I think the country wants to have a manned spaceflight program, and a substantial one.”
Roger D. Launius, the chairman of the division of space history at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, expressed surprise that Mr. Griffin would repeat his statement about the judgment of history after the controversy that erupted a year ago.
“Here we’ve got a guy who speaks his mind,” Mr. Launius said. “That’s not always the case, certainly in Washington, and it certainly hasn’t been the case at NASA.”
Still, while some of the criticism is justified, Mr. Launius said, the shuttle “turned out better than it had any right to,” and stands today as something of an engineering marvel.
Representative Bart Gordon, Democrat of Tennessee and the incoming head of the House Committee on Science, declined to address Mr. Griffin’s comments about the history of the space effort, saying through a spokeswoman: “I would rather focus on where we go from here. I support human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. However, it’s got to be paid for.”
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Dec. 8 — NASA’s administrator, Michael D. Griffin, says the current period of space exploration will come to be seen as a mistake.
Michael D. Griffin, NASA’s administrator, right, has criticized past policy decisions that guided the agency’s emphasis on the shuttle program.
“Viewed from the point of history several decades out,” he said in an interview, “the period where the United States retreated from the Moon and quite deliberately focused only on low Earth orbit will be seen, to me, a mistake.”
Mr. Griffin has made similar comments before, notably a year ago in an interview with USA Today. This time, his remarks came as he waited for Thursday’s down-to-the-wire effort to launch the shuttle on a 12-day mission to rewire the International Space Station. The liftoff was scrubbed at the last minute because of weather concerns.
Mission managers decided not to try to launch on Friday, when weather conditions were predicted to be too cloudy and windy for a safe launching. They expect to try again at 8:47 p.m. on Saturday, though the decision about whether to proceed will not be made until weather officers give their prediction early that morning.
Launching opportunities extend to Dec. 26, though space agency officials hope to get the shuttle to orbit long before then.
Mr. Griffin was appointed to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2005, a year after President Bush announced his “vision for space exploration,” which calls for returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020 and then moving on to send humans to Mars. Mr. Griffin has from the start been an enthusiastic proponent of that plan.
But it has put him in a delicate situation, as he has shifted NASA financing to the Moon initiative, while moving to complete the space station and shut down the shuttle program by 2010, and cutting back on its science activities. And in doing so, he has occasionally expressed doubts about the wisdom underlying the nation’s decision to build the shuttle and the station.
After his remarks a year ago, he issued an apologetic memorandum to NASA employees.
But if there was any discomfort in expressing such opinions once again at the Kennedy Space Center in the midst of preparations for launching, Mr. Griffin showed none. He said in the interview that his comments had been broadly misconstrued as a slap against the people who build and maintain the shuttle and space station, and emphasized that he admired the people of NASA who took on enormous challenges to create the shuttle and station.
The fault is not NASA’s, he said, adding: “The space shuttle is a response to a policy mistake — it isn’t the mistake. The mistake was tearing up all the infrastructure that we built for Apollo and saying, ‘let’s just focus on low Earth orbit.’ ”
The plan to return to the Moon by 2020 has been met with some skepticism, especially among those who doubt that the space agency can take on such a daunting project within its $17 billion annual budget. Dr. Griffin said that NASA could do the job — and could reach the moon even more quickly, with more money.
“I’m tempted to say, ‘Why the skepticism?’ ” he said, adding, “but in fairness, NASA’s recent history has not had the on-time, on-budget performance characteristic of the Apollo era. And I’m trying to restore that.”
The fact that Democrats won the majority of seats in Congress in the November election, and other political changes that will occur over time, should have little effect on the plan, he said.
“Unless you believe that a future U.S. president or a future U.S. Congress actually wants to cancel the U.S. spaceflight program, then I actually do not perceive a big threat from changing administrations and changing Congresses,” he said. “I think the country wants to have a manned spaceflight program, and a substantial one.”
Roger D. Launius, the chairman of the division of space history at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, expressed surprise that Mr. Griffin would repeat his statement about the judgment of history after the controversy that erupted a year ago.
“Here we’ve got a guy who speaks his mind,” Mr. Launius said. “That’s not always the case, certainly in Washington, and it certainly hasn’t been the case at NASA.”
Still, while some of the criticism is justified, Mr. Launius said, the shuttle “turned out better than it had any right to,” and stands today as something of an engineering marvel.
Representative Bart Gordon, Democrat of Tennessee and the incoming head of the House Committee on Science, declined to address Mr. Griffin’s comments about the history of the space effort, saying through a spokeswoman: “I would rather focus on where we go from here. I support human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. However, it’s got to be paid for.”
Even Columbus was expected to make a return for his sponsors, we can now do that in space and the low-orbit years have contributed to that enormously.
In short we simply weren't ready to exploit what Apollo did, soon we will be.
The only thing about the low-orbit years is the waste expended on the Shuttle. While inspiring, the current return to rocketry with a simple capsule speaks volumes.
Comment