[ExI] NASA chief blasts US space policy in leaked email

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Mon Sep 8 17:10:35 UTC 2008


NASA chief blasts US space policy in leaked emailWhite House advisers waged
'jihad' on Shuttle, ISSBy Lewis
Page<http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2008/09/08/griffin_leaked_email/>

An internal email from NASA chief Mike Griffin has been leaked to the media.
It expresses Griffin's frustration with recent US space policy, says that
White House oversight offices have waged a "jihad" against the space
shuttle, and offers a gloomy view of the future.

The email was obtained at the weekend by the *Orlando Sentinel*, and lays
out Griffin's view of how America should have acted in recent years.

"In a rational world," writes Griffin to a senior US advisor, "we would have
been allowed to pick a shuttle retirement date to be consistent with
Ares/Orion availability, we would have been asked to deploy Ares/Orion as
early as possible (rather than 'not later than 2014') and we would have been
provided the necessary budget to make it so."

The Ares rockets and Orion capsule will be NASA's next manned spacecraft,
but they will not be in service until 2014 or later. Meanwhile the shuttle
is currently marked for retirement in 2010, leaving the US dependent on
Russian Soyuz ships for access to the International Space Station (ISS).

Given the recent chill in US/Russian relations following events in Georgia,
Griffin is far from alone in seeing this as a problem. He's quite clear
where he thinks the blame lies: with the White House Offices of Management
and Budget and of Science and Technology Policy (OMB and OSTP), which set
funding and brief the president on tech matters.

"The rational approach didn't happen, primarily because for OSTP and OMB
retiring the Shuttle is a jihad rather than an engineering and management
decision. Further, they actively do not want the ISS to be sustained, and
they have done everything possible to ensure that it would not be."

Griffin believes that Russia will refuse to withdraw its forces from
Georgia, and as a result Washington politicians will not approve NASA
purchase of any further seats on Soyuz launches beyond those already
approved.

"My guess is that there is going to be a lengthy period with no US crew on
ISS after 2011. No additional money is going to be provided to accelerate
Orion/Ares, and even if it were, at this point we can't get there earlier
than 2014... Commercial solutions will ultimately emerge, but not
substantially before Orion/Ares are ready, if then.

"The alternatives are to continue flying shuttle, or abandon US presence on
ISS."

Griffin believes that this will be unacceptable to the next US president,
whether John McCain or Barack Obama. So, he believes, NASA will be ordered
to keep flying the shuttle once George Bush has departed.

"They will tell us to extend Shuttle," he writes. "There is no other
politically tenable course... Extending Shuttle creates no damage that they
will care about, other than to delay the lunar program. They will not count
that as a cost. They will not see what that does for US leadership in space
in the long term."

Thus, says Griffin, NASA should now begin planning to extend the shuttle
fleet's operations - "Plan B", as he calls it, "while doing the least damage
possible to Ares/Orion".

As to the argument that the US could retain meaningful control of an
entirely Russian-manned ISS - the station being remotely managed largely
from NASA ground stations - he says this is unrealistic "short of war".

"There are actions we could take to to hold ISS hostage, or even to prevent
them using it - power management stuff, for example. We will not take those
actions... the Russians can sustain ISS without US crew as long as we don't
actively sabotage them... we need them. They don't 'need' us. We're a 'nice
to have'."

Griffin goes on to say that if sufficient funds were available, NASA would
have no difficulty in keeping the Shuttle flying while at the same time
building Ares/Orion. Some have suggested that there would be conflicts
between the two programmes for use of NASA's mighty spaceship drydock, the
Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), for instance.

"if we're given extra money, then the VAB conflicts are solvable... It's
only a matter of money."

The beleaguered NASA chief signs off on an unhappy note.

"My own view is about as pessimistic as it is possible to be," he writes.
This, one may take it, means that he believes NASA will be ordered to keep
flying the Shuttle to the ISS without extra cash. This will in turn delay
Ares/Orion, holding up or even crippling America's bold new push to the Moon
and Mars. Meanwhile, rivals like Russia and China will press ahead.

In a statement released yesterday, Griffin said:

The leaked internal email fails to provide the contextual framework for my
remarks, and my support for the administration's policies. Administration
policy is to retire the shuttle in 2010 and purchase crew transport from
Russia until Ares and Orion are available. The administration continues to
support our request for [approval from Capitol Hill]. Administration policy
continues to be that we will take no action to preclude continued operation
of the International Space Station past 2016. I strongly support these
administration policies, as do OSTP and OMB.

The *Sentinel* writeup can be read
here<http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-nasa0708sep07,0,4759952.story>,
and an image of the email itself viewed
here<http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/files/GriffinEmail.jpg>.
(R)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/08/griffin_leaked_email/
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