Comments on: Griffin’s “exit interview”

By: BR549AMI

BR549AMI — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:28:16 +0000

That NASA is compared to General Motors is quite funny!

Notice how they’re not compared to Ford, Mercedes or Toyota?

The moniker “space cadet” is also cute!

I’m not a Griffin fan. Short-sighted, over-educated idiot. Couldn’t manage his way out of a wet paper bag with a map, flashlight, rope tied to his hand, being given on-going instructions. Go back to the lab, Mike. Stay out of the people and management business.

Bottom line for NASA?

1. Piss Poor Public Relations & 2. Lack of Vision (which are crystal-clear, cohesive and unifying).

By: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:30:57 +0000

Richardb:

“Ok the mileage is low but would a GM car operate at -130 F over 5 winters?”

You have a good point, but five Earth years do not contain five Martian winters.

By: Dave Huntsman

Dave Huntsman — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:40:25 +0000

I think Mike’s $3b/year to do the things that most of us would consider NASA’s primary jobs – like, technology development the private sector won’t do on its own – is disingenuous. He made the conscious decision to sacrifice everything – including R&D to enable the private sector to do things like increase flight rates, make RLV technology real, etc. etc. – for his own desire to bring back something better than the Saturn V. By putting it the way he does, he seeks to lay the blame on the politicos for not giving over more billions per year – instead of on himself, for making NASA his own Apollo redux at the extent of everything else, which was, simply put, the wrong priority.

By: richardb

richardb — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:47:45 +0000

Oh well, I tried to give NASA some props. Well I can’t resist.
Ok the mileage is low but would a GM car operate at -130 F over 5 winters?

Still NASA>GM.

By: pr

pr — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:57:06 +0000

Let’s see, Opportunity has ten miles on the odometer, Spirit five.

If GM could spend 400 megabucks on each Chevy Malibu they might be able to go ten miles without service, too.

By: richardb

richardb — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:18:40 +0000

NASA=GM? Thats a good joke.

But the counter point is NASA has built and operated two cars on Mars for over 5 without any road side service; without the need for a tow; without one turn of a wrench by a trained service technician. Can GM truthfully make the same claims?

NASA>GM

By: David Davenport

David Davenport — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:01:59 +0000

NASA = GM?

By: A NASA Engineer

A NASA Engineer — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:45:00 +0000

Lets see …so we need an extra $3B a year quote re. Griffin – “Seek additional funding for NASA, on the order of $3 billion a year â€œto repair and upgrade our institutional infrastructure, initiate sorely needed research and technology development efforts, and robustly execute those programs with which we are already charged.â€

But if we don’t have that $3B we just gut current space systems R&D, and decimate future R&D and future systems development…by creating a Shuttle replacement system composed of two optimized vehicles that will consume every last human space flight dollar in recurring yearly production and operations?

But wait…we can do plan B – complain we need the $3B?

Does this make any sense?

For the budgets we have we must start with wanting all these goals – balanced R&D, healthy future development AFTER Constellation, and a new Shuttle replacement. If only the budget was admitted to be a constraint, instead of R&D and future development as “Constellation reserve”, the right solutions would surely follow.

By: David Davenport

David Davenport — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:12:53 +0000

5.â€œRe-establish the freedom to fail, now and then, without requiring that heads roll.â€ Griffin did have the freedom to fail -- and his launch vehicle and spacecraft designs are failures. I agree with SI that peeple who spout words such as â€œdestiny in spaceâ€ and â€œvisionâ€ should be views with suspicion. (a) â€œIâ€™ve really had few surprises, if any, in this job.â€ b) â€œTwo or three of those choices have been quite poor, and the responsibility for them lies absolutely with me. If I could â€™start overâ€™, I would make better choices for those positions.â€ Arenâ€™t points (a) and (b) somewhat contradictory?

By: si_atwork

si_atwork — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:45:26 +0000

The ‘problem’ with Griffin was that often he says very true academic but practically doesn’t support such things, as he did for example back then at a a congressional committee when he spoke in doubt of the ‘Man Rating’ thingamajig (which was an extremely well articulated and well put argument!), but it gets laughed at often because they are often not applicable in the current regime for non technical reasons.

The ex admin waxes poetic often… using big nebulous words such as ‘destiny’ and ‘colonization’, as space exploration enthusiasts do anyway. It’s like the ‘space cadets’ are thinking they can win on some superficial political grounds when the solution is in the ‘nuts&bolts’ such as currently flying atlas/delta EELV programs which employ hundreds of very skilled engineers (*and do LEO related things with payload integration as we speak*)

Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? *Currently flying* is a HUGE advantage as the reliablility clock has started on them a while back. In fact the OSP was going to utilize them.