Mike Griffin
The Huntsville Times has a long profile of former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who accepted a $300,000/year teaching/rainmaker position at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
“The need for the (current space study commission headed by Norman Augustine) is motivated solely by the public controversy over whether NASA got it right, if you will, in the architectural choices being made following the (explosion of the shuttle Columbia in 2003),” he said.
“I happen to think that NASA got it right,” Griffin said, “but if it isn’t exactly right and isn’t exactly perfect, I would argue, ‘So what?’ The question is not is it perfect? Is it good enough? Will it work? Is it one of the acceptable choices … if so, shut up and move on.”
Griffin believes America’s technical community, especially when it comes to public projects, has “become overly preoccupied with making sure everyone agrees, and it’s an unattainable goal.”
“Part of engineering is creating things which have never existed before,” Griffin said.
I don’t even know where to begin on this one. It’s not really a problem of consensus; it’s a genuine fear that the Ares architecture isn’t working. It’s not working from an engineering standpoint, from a technical standpoint, from a cost standpoint. From any standpoint.
If things were going well on this project, people would have accepted it long ago and moved on. They would have said, “Hey, I didn’t think this was a good idea, but Mike has been proven right.” But, that isn’t the case.
People who work these issues know that there isn’t a perfect solution. They know that Delta IV and DIRECT and the other possible options have drawbacks, costs and risks. It’s just that the current option seems so seriously flawed. And it would be ridiculous for them to simply shut up if we’re heading for a major fall here.
The Ares architecture is primarily Griffin’s plan. It’s little wonder that he defends it with this sort of ferocity. But, he doesn’t seem to ever acknowledge any of the legitimate reasons why people might want to review his masterpiece. And that doesn’t help us very much at this point.
Read the full interview.
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It really surprises me just how strongly he defends this architecture without a lot of supporting evidence, especially with what I’ve heard about him. I talked to a guy high up at MSFC, and he told me that Dr. Griffin doesn’t walk into a technical discussion with an opinion.
The thing is, he doesn’t even give legitimate reasons why the other architectures are bad choices! It’s like he finds their biggest drawback is that he didn’t pick the 4/5/however many years ago.
Doug –
What you said!
Dave
Why not engineer what does exist ?
Innovation will lead, but that can certainly be achieved as innovation for partnership and collaboration within a global space faring community. At this critical time, growing US space assets will surely be better served through focus into interactive and developmental purpose, than through focus on a unilateral program, whose main intention seems to be to get back to the moon first. Which given the current state of things would indeed give another invaluable look at the lunar dust while a global community continues on into the vortex of extinction.
What can be achieved through international space venture also realistically represents a significant guiding principle and purpose into a productive and sustainable planetary future.
We might think some more about what has never existed before, and what really needs engineering into reality.
Practical abilities for a unique, collaborative and globalized space venture that quickly can take us to the moon and beyond, bring us together as communities of nations, ensure the levels of an equitable global security and directly address the critical problems of our time within cooperative working platforms for the key space based communication, information, data and computational utilities.
What is the space and information age going to look like, a nationalized race or a singular festival of human ingenuity and collaborative venture as we move past the threshold of planetary stability. What is the actual prize here, we might be pleased to get wherever first but even so would be pretty disappointed to find out that the audience had perished en route to the destination.