Michael Griffin Chats About NASA's Future Under President Obama

Michael Griffin's days as NASA administrator may be numbered.

He sat down with Discovery News aerospace writer Irene Klotz before last Friday's space shuttle launch to discuss the shuttle's retirement, NASA's future under incoming President Barack Obama and why he is prepared to leave his job.

Irene Klotz: The Government Accountability Office (GAO), in its tally sheet for the new administration, identified the shuttle's retirement as one of the top...

Michael Griffin: ...issues for the transition. Yes, I know. I found that amusing.

IK: Why amusing?

MG: I think the country has enough interesting topics confronting us in the present day and time that space shuttle retirement is probably not deservedly on that list. That's just my opinion.

That's a matter of -- to me -- technical program management in the space program and should be approached as such. So I noted the GAO's assessment of that as a top issue for President Obama with some amusement.

IK: Have you been contacted by the transition team yet?

MG: No.

IK: If money wasn't an issue, if there was enough money to fly extra shuttle flights and it didn't impede progress with Orion, would you have safety issues with continuing to fly the shuttle past 2010?

MG: Well I have safety issues and concerns with every shuttle flight.

As we all know, the shuttle is not as reliable as we once believed it was and hoped it was. The statistical estimates we have today I think are more realistic than in years past, and a one-in-80 chance -- roughly -- of losing a crew on a given flight is a sobering number. But no flight is any worse than any other flight, I don't particularly have issues with flying the shuttle past 2010, if money were available.

But that's a huge "if." The primary concern, to be honest, that I have about flying the shuttle past 2010 is what it does to NASA's future because money is not available to do both things, and I don't wish to mortgage the future in order to continue flying the shuttle. I think it unwise.

The secondary issue that I would have is one of safety. If we continue to fly the shuttle we face high odds that we will again lose a vehicle and crew and I don't want that to occur.

IK: With so much money flying around Washington these days, what's $2 billion?

MG: Well, we would need more than $2 billion to continue flying the shuttle and if you ask me, "Do I think NASA should have that money?" I would say "certainly." But I'm not being asked if I think NASA should have more money.

As administrator, I'm being asked to craft a program to accomplish certain things given the money which has been allocated to us, which does not have that several extra billion dollars that are necessary. And if we do not have several extra billion dollars to continue flying the shuttle while keeping other programs on course, then I will tell you that I believe that the path we're on -- retire the shuttle, work our way through the gap and complete the development of Ares and Orion -- is the best and most logical path to follow.

You're living in a different world than I live in. You're living in a world where these questions of whether there's several extra billion dollars out there to continue doing these things, and I can't plan a program on hypotheticals. I can only plan a program that takes into account the resources I've been told I will have.

I don't mean that in a negative, or sarcastic or a diminishing way at all. "What if..." games and hypotheticals are fun to indulge in, but I can't plan a program that way.

IK: In response to a question from a Kennedy Space Center worker yesterday, you said that you don't expect to stay on as administrator of NASA under Barack Obama -- but if you were asked to stay, it would be under some specific conditions. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that?

MG: I am a presidential appointee. I serve at the pleasure of the president. There are several thousand presidential appointees in every administration. When administrations change, almost all of them leave. A very few typically are asked to remain on. I've never seen any reason why I should be one of those few. So I expect, the normal expectation is that the new president and his team will have their own choice for NASA administrator.

If I were to be that choice I would be surprised, I would be honored. I would be willing to continue on as administrator under the right circumstances. The circumstances include a recognition of the fact that two successive Congresses -- one Republician and one Democrat -- have strongly endorsed, hugely endorsed, the path NASA is on: Finish the station, retire the shuttle, return to the moon, establish a base on the moon, look outward to the near-Earth asteroids and on to Mars. That's the path we're on. I think it's the right path.

I think for 35 years since the Nixon administration we've been on the wrong path. It took the loss of Columbia and Admiral Gehman's (Columbia Accident Investigation Board) report highlighting the strategic issues to get us on the right path. We're there. I personally will not be party to taking us off that path. Someone else may wish to, but I do not.

Second, NASA took about a 20 percent cut in real dollars -- inflation-adjusted dollars -- during the Clinton administration. It was gradual over the course of the administration, it wasn't a big whack in any one year, but it was a gradual downtrend. But no real content went away from the program so we're struggling to do all that we're being told to do by the president and the Congress with less money than we had just a few years ago.

The Bush administration halted the decline in our budget but did not restore what had been removed, so we've been sort of in a steady-state since then. We certainly cannot execute our program with any less funding and I personally will not be party to an arrangement whereby we agree that we can continue to do what we're doing with less money.

And thirdly I think it is crucially important to have at the management level at NASA -- managing our centers, managing our mission directorates, managing our key functional offices -- important to have people who are knowledgeable and experienced in the aerospace business doing that. In past years, we've had too many examples where that wasn't the case. The Bush administration did not mandate even one person that I had to have to fill out the NASA management team, so I was able to pick a good team and that's absolutely essential for any agency. We can't pick people to run a space agency based on politics and I won't be party to that either.

Article posted November 20, 2008.

Got something to say? E-mail your questions, comments or concerns to discoveryspace@discovery.com.

MORE SPACE INTERVIEWS