IMAGE: Gifted NASA Administrator Mike Griffin attends to the perfect on-time and trouble-free liftoff of space shuttle Discovery on a mission to deliver Japan's Kibo research complex to the space station... A week earlier, landing the Mars Phoenix probe...Private Missions: Beyond Gov. Funding
Misunderstandings... The Media story (below) seems to have less to do with NASA Space program, and more to do with NASA budget, global warming funding; as pursued by the newly-elect, & transitional team...
This sort of Media report was not needed...
NASA has become a transition problem for Obama #
CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is "not qualified" to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned...read.
The unique history of NASA success is due to a well integrated balance of experts with a unified goal, not divisive strategy...Gov. is not every Solution!
Misunderstandings of NASA Administrator Griffin (clarified in Video)
And while Griffin has been criticized by some, concerning 'over-all planetary observations' of climate-change... He brought forth a realistic expectation of what is likely to be within our grasp... This should also be accepted research.
Understanding what NASA is, and why our Government developed it; will help us examine the reality of our options, and expectations... Overview.
The NASA Administrator, in remarks given to the Space Transportation Association on 22 January 2008, entitled:
"The Constellation Architecture"
Griffin explains:
"Further application of common sense also requires us to acknowledge that now is the time, this is the juncture, and we are the people to make provisions for the contributions of the commercial space sector to our nation's overall space enterprise.
The development and exploitation of space has, so far, been accomplished in a fashion that can be described as "all government, all the time."
"That's not the way the American frontier was developed, it's not the way this nation developed aviation, it's not the way the rest of our economy works, and it ought not to be good enough for space, either...Suborbital Human Spaceflight...
So, proactively and as a matter of deliberate policy, we need to make provisions for the first step on the stairway to space to be occupied by commercial entrepreneurs - whether they reside in big companies or small ones." More.
From page 6 of a speech entitled "NASA and Commercial Space: Public Trust and Private Interest" given by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin to the Space Transportation Association on 11 January 2007:
We should not overstate case as to how NASA should behave more like a commercial or entrepreneurial endeavor...
NASA is in the market for orbital services as well: Two companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, are getting millions of dollars in development funds to build spaceships capable of resupplying the international space station once the shuttle fleet retires in 2010... Griffin said the space agency's recent request for station resupply bids drew proposals from more than a dozen companies... [Source:commercialspace]
Personal Note: With family at NASA... Griffin's assessments couple expert technology with a remarkably perfectionist logic; all of which have furthered NASA program beyond ALL expectations... The idea that we need to belittle this Scientist's dedicated efforts, just to make a change, is wrong thinking.
