NASA

Griffin fires back at advisors

Several days after three scientists resigned (or were asked to resign) from the NASA Advisory Council, administrator Michael Griffin fired back at the members, and scientists in general, in a memo, ScienceNOW reported late Tuesday. “The scientific community… expects to have far too large a role in prescribing what work NASA should do,” Griffin told NAC members in a memo obtained by ScienceNOW. “By ‘effectiveness,’ what the scientific community really means is ‘the extent to which we are able to get NASA to do what we want to do’.” And if NAC members disagree with NASA’s approach? “The most appropriate recourse for NAC members who believe the NASA program should be something other than what it is, is to resign.”

Harsh language, and language that is unlikely to win much support from the scientific community, although former NAC members like Wes Huntress were firing back. Saying that the advice that he and fellow former members Charles Kennel and Eugene Levy was “simply not required nor desired,” Huntress added that the current council “has no understanding or patience for the science community process.” One suspects that we have not heard the last in this clash between NASA leadership and scientists.

22 comments to Griffin fires back at advisors

  • Doug Lassiter

    It seems that Griffin is finally showing his true colors. While the guy is under huge stress, with recent revelations about the ballooning cost of the Exploration architecture, such a reaction is surprising. The NAC doesn’t really prescribe what work NASA should do. It’s FACA advisory committee, and the scientists on it are formally charged with providing the Administrator with honest science community perspective. Griffin can do with that advice whatever he wants. That he can’t tolerate the advice they give suggests some managerial immaturity.

    Yes, the Administrator should be able to surround himself with yes-men if he really wants, but that’s not what the NAC is for.

    It would be interesting to understand what advice was deemed inconsistent with what the NASA program is. The agency strategic plan is pretty clear on the latter, and the science these former NAC members represent is a big part of it.

  • Personally I’m glad this is coming to something of a head so we can finally have the debate. Pointing out the sunk-cost fallacy as a basis, I would ask those who support the Science Uber Alles to engage in a little bit of a thought experiment: assume for just a moment that NASA did not exist and that miraculously we have discovered overnight the technological ability to explore space at our current levels. Now, you are faced with an opportunity to do any number of things in space: science, exploration, commerce, tourism, etc. How would you organize the Federal Government to take advantage of that opportunity?

    Would you really and truly recreate NASA in its current form?

  • vze3gz45

    If most of the space scientists had their way, their would be no human spaceflight. We would be sending only robots into space, and that would be the ultimate waste of taxpayer money because we would never learn anything about humans living, working and surviving in space. Most of what these scientists care about is robots, their careers and their grant money for research, not the survivel of humanity.

    vze3gz45

  • vze3gz45,
    I don’t think that’s necessarily true. My opinion is that most space scientists see NASA as the only place they know of for space science money to come from so they see anything that NASA does that competes with that money as a Bad Thing. Anytime your budget is based off of a political process you view the entity that pulls money from your budget as “the enemy”. Remove that competition and I don’t think any space scientist would object to human space flight at all. Hence the reason I as trying to reframe the discussion.

  • A rare moment of complete agreement with Doug. This is extremely ill advised, for all the reasons Doug states and then some. While I disagree with many space scientists, they have a right — indeed a duty — to present their Point of View, as do we advocates human spaceflight.

    More importantly, Dr. Griffin in tearing apart what started out as a broad coalition. Part of that was inevitable with the new budget pressures and the inevitable hard choices, but Dr. Griffin seems determined to inflame passions.

    He needs to listen to, and understand, his enemies, then to learn from them how he can get them to fail to oppose NASA’s broader strategies — not fire them. A good start would be to rope as many scientists as possible into lunar (and near Earth asteroid and Martian moon) geology right away, so that their collective voice is at least as loud as those now screaming because NASA’s priorities have changed.

    — Donald

  • Dave Huntsman

    Mike, IMO, has clearly crossed the line on this one. Reason: He’s confused the job of a political appointee – i.e. his own job, as Administrator — — with those of a scientific advisory committee. A political appointee’s job is indeed to agree ‘when decisions have already been made’. A scientific advisory group’s very job is to recommend a change in direction, if they think one is needed for the science part of the program. It is oxymoronish – or maybe just moronish – to say an advisor can’t recommend changes- by definition, recommending a change means disagreeing with the current direction, whatever it is.

    Whoever is advising him inside the Agency – or maybe not advising him, it appears – is really not doing their job. Mike’s effectiveness is now hurt, quite a bit. Unless he does some sort of spiritual transplant here, from now on he can never say, “Yes, I heard the science community out before I made the tough decisions……”. Putting – apparently – yes-men only on the Advisory Committee not only means he’s lost credibility with the entire science community (worldwide), but also means he can’t say from here that he’s even hearing them out.

    From an internal ‘space politics’ standpoint, this is terrible. Mike needs to get some new internal advisors, for them to allow this to happen.

    I have no comment, per se, on the three individuals or there relationships with the rest of the NAC; I simply don’t know what else may or may not be going on. BUT…… the response to this….Mike’s and his spokesman’s responses, in particular – is far, far worse. Kinda like the coverup being far worse than the original crime.

    Mike – You’re better than this. Even more important – all of us, and the future of the planet, NEED you to be better. Take a breath. Then: Knock it off; fly straight, mend some bridges, re-orient your thinking, and then let’s proceed.

    Dave Huntsman
    32-year NASA employee

  • On the other hand, this was a memo, not a press release.

    I think any of us would be testy under Griffin’s current pressures, and my guess is that it was written at the end of a long hard day.

    In the Machiavellian model of advisors, they advise on the questions you ask and no more. Anger is the Machiavellian response to advice that is not sought.

  • Tom

    Mike Griffin is incredibly talented when it comes to engineering and space system development, but he clearly lacks the attributes needed to be an effective agency lead. Unless you are in a crises environment, government requires a balance between oftentimes competing interests. Griffin has clearly set the agency on a very focused but ultimately myopic course that steps on the toes of the commercial and scientific communities. This situation is unsustainable.

  • spazimodo

    Mike Griffin would not have these budget problems if he was not so insistent on building launch vehicles that no one else will ever use, creating even an infrastructure with no political support outside of NASA.

    There are ways of getting to the Moon much cheaper, or alternatively, if he would put forth a more comprehensive vision he might be able to get the money from congress.

  • This administration is rotten to the core. You voted for it. You got it. Now it’s time for you to fix it.

    Vote these incompetent fascists out of office.

    That’s the only way to solve this problem.

    They aren’t going to quit on their own.

  • spazimodo: Mike Griffin would not have these budget problems if he was not so insistent on building launch vehicles that no one else will ever use, creating even an infrastructure with no political support outside of NASA.

    Unfortunately, I fully agree with this. Long-time inmates here will recall that I predicted this outcome: that the decision not to use the EELVs would end up being the VSE’s greatest financial and political liability.

    Even more unfortunately, it is probably too late. This is the plan that the government (broadly defined as both Mr. Bush and Congress and NASA) is behind, and I doubt that a change of course is politically achievable while also retaining the VSE.

    — Donald

  • Mr. Elifritz,
    Ok. Let’s say we’ve done that. Let’s say its February 2008 and we’ve thrown the Republican’s out of the Whitehouse, the Senate AND the House. What kind of space program do we end up with?

  • Michael, I’d like to take a stab at that. Assuming the new president is someone fairly middle-of-the-road and that change in Congress is not too drastic, I doubt there will be a big change. Some of the specifics of the VSE will change, its name will certainly change, the NASA administrator probably will change (especially since Dr. Griffin is making so many enemies) which will result in a different tone, and robotic science will probably see an increased emphasis at the expense of human efforts. However, the overall direction of NASA back to the moon and on to Mars is both logical (what else are you going to do if you’re going to have a big government space program and not cancel the human part of it?) and more bipartisan than it has been since Apollo.

    So, short of radical upheaval in the government — which probably is not in the near-term books — I don’t expect a lot of change. Things will be stretched out, but the goals will not significantly differ from what they are now.

    That is the genious of the VSE — and why I support it. It set goals with which many or most people will not disagree to the extent of expending political capital, and tried to achieve them without politically expensive changes in the budget. Dr. Griffin has hurt that strategy by being unnecessarily ham-fisted politically, but probably (hopefully) he has not yet destroyed it.

    — Donald

  • Doug Lassiter

    A rare moment of complete agreement with Donald! (I think.)

    VSE should be an umbrella for all the different kinds of space exploration that NASA does so well. Yeah, that’s marketing, but marketing works. Congress and the taxpayer need a strategic underpinning for the agency as a whole. That the emphasis is now on human space flight is mainly because that is what so desperately needs direction and goals. But going out of his way to slap science advisors into getting on board with what he sees as the plan is remarkably naive.

  • Wow, Doug, on this we do agree!

    — Donald

  • What kind of space program do we end up with?

    We end up with an Earth Program (NOAA) with Earth Science as its focus, and a Space Program (NASA) with Space Science as its focus.

    In particular a manned space program designed to last beyond the next administration, with dual rotating launches of six people at a time at SLC-37A/B, and dual rotating heavy lift launches at SLC-39A/B, with a vibrant and active life sciences program on the ISS, demonstrating 2 year duration missions, a vibrant propulsion program on the Planet Earth which will make missions to the Planet Earth routine, and which will propel US into the space colonization era practically overnight, and eventually make manned space flights to Phobos, Deimos and that remarkable new fifth planet Ceres practical.

    Going back to the moon is stupid when we haven’t even had a proper Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter yet. Let me try to explain it to you – we can’t frickin afford it anymore. The money is fricken gone. Do I have to use this kind of language to get through your thick skull? Earth is the mission here. Everything else is tangential, we aren’t going to the moon and mars anytime soon, it just isn’t affordable. We’re going to Phobos and Deimos and Ceres and the asteroids, anyone can see that.

    The moon is a horrible and costly diversion.

    If you aren’t confronting the Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Space Sciences and the Natural Sciences head on, then you are in denial here. We’ve got some serious problems on the planet Earth here, and the moon and Mars aren’t going to solve them.

    Three words : propulsion, launch and life support. As far as science missions go, we need to get twin Phobos and Deimos orbiter, lander and hopper missions into the queue, and a Ceres orbiter and lander, as well as a far more aggressive mission to planet Earth, and equatorial and GEO manned stations, using private enterprise.

  • D. Messier

    Griffin’s rhetoric is soaring: an administrator standing up to a special interest that’s trying to dictate policy to the United States government. You would be tempted to applaud at first. Then you remember who Griffin actually works for and you can’t help but wonder.

    This is an administration that allowed Kenny Lay to decide who would head up Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that oversaw Enron. It effectively turned our energy policy over the Exxon-Mobil and their ilk. Its environmental policies have been dictated by the same crowd and have been marked by obfuscation, delays, and outright falsehoods.

    The Bush Administration had an unqualified former energy lobbyist with no science background rewriting reports on global warming. It hired a college student who tried to dictate to NASA scientists what to say.

    In order to fund its lunar program, the administration is busy cutting the supposely vigorous research programs that it promised in lieue of serious action on carbon emissions. They’re also going to finish the space station but want to zero out the science funding to actually use it. This after spending 20 plus years and almost $100 billion.

    And for what? A lunar program that – at least from what’s leaking out – has an unstable launch vehicle, is getting incredibly expensive, and may not be financially sustainable. But, it is based on existing hardware, thus keeping large defense contractors and their armies of employees happy and busy making campaign contributions.

    Griffin’s remarks and actions are par for the course for this government. It has no trouble standing up to scientists. They’re easy targets.

  • In order to fund its lunar program, the administration is busy cutting the supposely vigorous research programs that it promised in lieue of serious action on carbon emissions.

    Huh?

    Do you have any comprehension of how the federal budgeting process works?

  • D. Messier

    When Bush announced this program, he said it would be funded from increases in NASA’s overall budget and modest cuts in other programs within the agency’s portfolio. My understanding is that there have been significant cuts in other programs as the lunar effort’s costs have soared.

    In fact, that seems to be precisely what this dispute is all about: Griffin basically telling the scientists it’s this way or the highway.

    If I’m wrong about that, then I’d be interested in hearing why.

  • Oh boy. Let’s all bash the mean NASA administrator, because it’s so easy to do when you only hear one side of the story.

    If I’m not mistaken, we’re talking about a leaked internal memo which was never intended to be plastered all over the internet and picked apart by armchair political analysts. I’m tempted to wonder what nice things these wonderful and supportive NAC members had to say to Dr. Griffin which could have evoked such a strongly worded response.

    Come on folks. It’s not as if Dr. Griffin is prone to these little outbursts. Have any of you paused long enough to consider giving him the benefit of the doubt?

  • Have any of you paused long enough to consider giving him the benefit of the doubt?

    Sure we have, but we have also quantified his space launch architecture and his specific engineering solutions to specific infrastructure problems, and there is no doubt in my mind that these are his solutions to the problems at hand, and it doesn’t add up. Griffin is a technological failure, before he even gets started. The money simply is not there, and his architecture is shoddy and his engineering is faulty. We simply cannot afford the waste on the scale he is proposing. A program or proposal lives or dies on its merits, and ESAS in its present form is a lame duck. There are those that want to kill the duck, and those that want to try and save the duck, others want to switch to breeding swans. I just want to get the quackery out of our prestigious national scientific institutions. You know the story : quack. It’s not just Griffin, it’s an endemic problem in our scientific institutions at the highest levels created by our administration, just calling this administration an administration is being very generous.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Well, if Griffin is naive enough to believe he can write a memo like that to independent science advisors and have it remain a secret, I’m unimpressed with his political savvy.

    As I said, here’s a guy who is stressed, and for very good reason.

    I’d be delighted to hear from Griffin why this happened and, in doing so, would even be willing to listen to him express consternation about leaked memos! But perhaps he understands that the armchair political analysts have it exactly right.