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Is NASA flying blind? Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin, who served under President George W. Bush and resigned when President Barack Obama took office, has taken a professorship at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Griffin will teach mechanical and aerospace engineering in Huntsville, a hub of aerospace activity that is home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Meanwhile the space agency remains leaderless nearly three months after Griffin's resignation, with associate administrator Christopher Scolese acting as agency chief in an interim capacity.

In an editorial last week, the Orlando Sentinel called for the White House to appoint an administrator for the space agency. "NASA badly needs a leader and a plan," the op-ed said. "The future of the U.S. space program, billions of dollars, and thousands of jobs, depend on it."

Among the issues facing an incoming NASA boss: whether to continue pursuing Constellation, the ambitious but oft-criticized successor to the space shuttle that Griffin championed, whether to return human exploration beyond low Earth orbit to the fore, and, if so, whether to set the agency's sights on putting humans back on the moon or sending them to loftier targets.

As the Sentinel editorial points out, thousands of jobs at Kennedy Space Center and elsewhere along the so-called Space Coast will vanish when the space shuttle program ends in 2010 as currently planned. (The program's phaseout, placed on temporary hold last year to allow the new president to weigh in, will resume on May 1 without intervention, Florida Today reports.) Without a definitive plan, it will be difficult for those workers and their employers to make the transition.

Early in the campaign Obama had proposed delaying Constellation by five years to free up funds for education; later the candidate reversed course and proposed expediting a replacement for the shuttle. More recently, the president's budget request for fiscal year 2010, released in February, suggested using freed-up shuttle funds to develop unnamed "systems to deliver people and cargo to the International Space Station and the Moon."

Griffin, who was rumored to have clashed with Obama transition team members over potential Constellation cuts, is no stranger to academia. According to his NASA bio, Griffin, 59, was an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University. He holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland, as well as a whopping five master's degrees—in aerospace science, electrical engineering, civil engineering, applied physics and business administration—from various institutions.

Griffin portrait: NASA/Renee Bouchard

3 Comments

1. 1. Tony Rusi 01:11 PM 4/17/09

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   There is more to this than just space jobs in florida. Space based solar power is the only clean alternative to fossil fuels, and nuclear power that has the capacity to replace all current and projected use of oil by the world. Earth based wind and solar cannot do it alone. And they will suck up precious land needed for future population growth and wildlife habitat.

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2. 2. revloc 03:50 PM 4/17/09

   The fastest and cheapest way to replace the shuttle is to adapt the current EELV rockets built for the Air Force to lift the Orion Space capsule. ARES1 has too many problems with all the pogoing and shaking. It should be cancelled. ARES V development should continue however to get people to the Moon and Mars.

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3. 3. JimMcDade 12:42 AM 4/18/09

   Contrary to the perception of revloc, the progress Ares I continues and there are no show-stopping problems with "pogoing and shaking". those problems were greatly exaggerated by the proponents of alternatives to Ares I, but Ares I will be America's next astronaut crew space booster. Mr or Ms revloc was probably fooled by bogus internet "rocket scientists", or he/she may have a job-related interest in seeing NASA switch to those military missiles known as EELVs.

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