Much of the talk of a new “space race” emerging between the United States and China has been fed by comments by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin where he said that he believed China could land humans on the Moon before the US could return. Griffin reiterated that belief in an interview with the Houston Chronicle published Sunday, but also made it clear that he does not desire a repeat of the original space race between the US and USSR:
Q: Would it be such a bad thing for NASA if China or India got back to the moon first?
A: I will raise my hand and say I do not want another space race. What happens when you do that is, you tend to get a short period of intense funding, and then the attention goes away, funding dissipates, and it’s like an army dealing with a retreat. The hardest thing to do in military circles is to manage an effective retreat. What I want for NASA is stable and predictable funding and a stable set of goals. Finish the (international space) station, retire the shuttle, return to the moon, go to Mars. Those are great goals for the next 50 years. I certainly wouldn’t mind a higher level of funding, but the stability of funding is more important than the absolute level.
What the Apollo engineers did was one of the miracles of human accomplishment. But I could make a pretty good case for you that, for the long-term mastery of spaceflight by our nation as a strategic capability, Apollo did more damage than good. We built up an industrial base, we built up a set of expectations, we accomplished one of the most marvelous things that’s ever been done, and then we dismantled it all. It brings to mind the fable of the tortoise and the hare.
if Mr. Griffin thinks that (despite the four years delay in the develpment of the 25 mT payload Long March 5 rocket) China (and, maybe, also India) will beat U.S. in the (new) moon race (and I agree with him that this might happen) it’s unclear to me WHY his ESAS rockets/missions’ architecture choice has been (and still is) the longer and most expensive possible (mainly due to the new SRB-5 and J-2X) with a waste of eight years and $10 Bn (NASA) to $14.4 Bn (GAO) ONLY to develop the Ares-1 (that, as explained on my ghostNASA.com blog, could not work)
heh .. finally someone with a voice in space industry having balls ( or naivete ) to imply that Apollo _may_ have been damaging to the concept of being spacefaring.
I wish Griffins actions followed more closely his words, and he would cancel his plans to implement VSE as Apollo on streroids.
You are one ignorant tw0t who can only dream about having some balls.
Michael Griffin is the worst administrator of NASA ever, and has done more damage to the reputation of NASA than any other administrator in US history.
Apollo was one of the only good things that happened to America in the 60s and 70s, and possies like you couldn’t take down a sitting US president or overturn the established authority of the United States of America if your life depended on it, which it demonstrably does right now.
Gtow some balls, woman.
yes, the mistake was not the Apollo, but throw everything (rockets, technologies, investments) in the trash can in ’72
Let’s not call it a ‘race’ so we don’t have to call what we do ‘losing’.
Griffin’s comments are consistent with a view that we already have the technologies needed.
If you don’t subscribe to this view, then Griffin’s other comments to the effect that new technologies only emerge from a government bureaucracy under pain of death apply.
A happy medium is the pyramids, which best evidence suggests were built by competing teams who were not slaves. (#)
Either way, Griffin is a very smart guy, though not a cheerleader, as imfamously observed by congress. It is difficult to judge him without knowing his political constraints.
(#) I dare not suggest not under cost plus contracting.
Kevin: A happy medium is the pyramids, which best evidence suggests were built by competing teams who were not slaves.
This is correct. The pyramids were not built sequentially; there was significant overlap when two pyramids were being built at once. We know this because, when one pyramid failed and collapsed (they are actually quite complex structures; a simple pile of stone would collapse and flow of its own weight), the engineers immediately reduced the angle of another pyramid then under construction, creating the “bent” pyramid.
We know, or at least strongly suspect, that the pyramids were built by willing labor because Egypt did not have a standing army at the time the largest ones were built.
— Donald
Far from being candid, Griffin is often all over the map with his comments. His various statements conflict with each other; they’re often at odds with his own actions.
He seems to get away with a lot of this stuff because few people are willing to challenge him on it. Probably because he comes off as not really caring and they doubt it would make any different. This is a man who demands the space community “police” itself and make anyone who dissents “unwelcome.”
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