Griffin’s not that frank

NASA administrator Mike Griffin is known for speaking his mind in plain language, be it in industry forums or in front of Congress. However, AFP may be taking things too far:

“When we celebrate 100 years of Sputnik, we might celebrate the 20th anniversary of man landing on Mars,” Frank Griffin, NASA’s chief administrator said […]

What minor presidential candidates think about space (not much)

There’s an interesting post at RLV and Space Transport News that features some comments by Democratic presidential candidates on the nation’s space vision. Armin Ellis, who attended a presidential campaign debate in New Hampshire this week, posed the question “What is your vision for America’s space program?” to several of the candidates after the debate. […]

Space and Solutions Day

On Saturday American Solutions for Winning the Future, the organization created by Newt Gingrich to, in its words, “provide real, significant solutions to the most important issues facing our country”, will be hosting a Solutions Day featuring a number of workshops on various policy topics. (The event actually kicks off tonight with a speech by […]

The trillion-dollar Moon mission

You probably remember that, around the time the Vision for Space Exploration was first released, a number of media reports estimated the cost of the perceived ultimate goal of the effort—a manned Mars mission—at a trillion dollars. (See Dwayne Day’s “Whispers in the echo chamber” article in The Space Review in March 2004 for a […]

Griffin on balancing the public and private sectors

In yesterday’s issue of The Space Review I published an article on recent comments by NASA administrator Mike Griffin on the roles of the public and private sectors in spaceflight. These comments include not just the ones he made during his “Space Economy” speech at a luncheon on September 17 but more informal remarks during […]

Salvaging Galileo

When the public-private partnership that was originally envisioned to pay for the development of Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system fell through earlier this year, it became clear that if Galileo was to continue, it would have to do so entirely at the expense of European taxpayers. Now it appears that EU has found a way […]

Griffin: China will beat US to the Moon

Earlier today NASA administrator Mike Griffin gave a luncheon speech in Washington to talk about the “space economy”, a concept part of the agency’s new strategic communications plan. His most noteworthy comment, though, came near the end of the Q&A session after his talk, when he was asked about the potential for cooperation and competition […]

NASA’s “budget squeeze”

The Huntsville Times reports today on comments made by Reps. Bud Cramer (D-AL) and Bart Gordon (D-TN) at an all-hands meeting at NASA MSFC yesterday. The two said they were particularly concerned that NASA might have to operate under another continuing resolution, depending on what the Senate does with its version of appropriations legislation. Cramer: […]

Mars Society continues its push on NASA budget language

The Mars Society sent out an alert to its members last week regarding language in the House version of the FY2008 NASA budget that would prevent NASA from spending money on projects exclusively intended for human Mars exploration. (It’s not clear exactly how many projects this would affect, although it’s unlikely to be more than […]

Proton failures and Russian-Kazakh relations

Almost immediately after a Proton-M rocket failed and crashed on Kazakh territory downrange from the Baikonur Cosmodrome last week, the Kazakh government moved to ban Proton launches from Baikonur. This isn’t the first time the Kazakh government has moved to ban Proton launches after an accident, in part because of environmental concerns associated with the […]