NASA

Rutan and Griffin

At Wednesday’s House hearing on commercial spaceflight, Burt Rutan mentioned in passing that he would be meeting with new NASA administrator Mike Griffin later that day. That meeting did take place and NASA had provided a photo of it as part of a gallery of images of the new administrator. (See photo number 8.) Michael Huang, who pointed out the photo in an email, wonders if the two are looking at an illustration of a lunar lander or similar spacecraft. That certainly wouldn’t be out of the question, since Scaled Composites is on the team led by t/Space that has an exploration concept study contract with NASA.

3 comments to Rutan and Griffin

  • Extend. Embrace. Extinguish.

  • That looks like it is just an illustration of SS1, the part that looks like a lander leg is probably just the tail section of SS1. Or who knows, maybe it’s SS2. But either of those makes a lot more sense than it being a lunar lander.

  • Matthew Brown

    “Extend. Embrace. Extinguish.”

    Usually I’d agree with you, but this time I’m willing to give Griffin the bennefit of the doubt.

    He has the bug, and hopefully some of the middle management that really runs NASA will soften to him because he is a space cadet. Others so entrenched in their fiefdoms won’t. It only takes a pebble to start an avalanche.

    I’ll give him to end of year before I’ll worry too much. But i’ll be ever watchfull.

    Besides, give Burt more credit, he already had that happen to him on the DC-X. So he is aware of the way NASA moves and will be on the lookout. Burt also has the bug. It won’t stop him, provided he can get funding. Which i’m confident that he will, no matter what tricks NASA trys.