Griffin Concerned Future Is Bleak

The Obama White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is proposing a $3.5 billion NASA budget cut that would hurt the Constellation Program developing the next generation U.S. spacecraft, killing chances that the United States could return to the moon by 2020.

Mike Griffin, former NASA administrator, said civil service functionaries in OMB shouldn’t be making decisions of that magnitude. He spoke at a National Space Club formal dinner at the Washington Hilton hotel, where he was honored with an award.

President Obama, when he was a senator last year seeking election to the White House, told voters in Florida that he would be a friend of the space program, and would be open to increasing funding for space travel by perhaps $2 billion. That would allow space shuttles to continue flying from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., after the Sept. 30, 2010 (the end of fiscal 2010) retirement deadline that then-President Bush had mandated.

Obama next month will unveil his detailed federal government budget plan for fiscal 2010. It is possible that Obama could provide extra money for shuttle flights in fiscal 2011, and yet also cut Constellation Program funds in a way that would devastate the lunar mission.

China is pursuing a lunar program that foresees a manned mission by 2020. India and Japan also might be interested in such a feat, as might the European Space Agency, though ESA might opt to go to the moon with NASA — if, that is, NASA is able to go there in the foreseeable future.

The United States thus far is the only nation to have placed men on the moon.

Obama decided not to retain Griffin as NASA administrator, despite Griffin’s multiple advanced degrees, his engineering skills, his personal skills as a pilot, his record of fixing problems at NASA including recovery from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and more.

Griffin last year had an encounter with an Obama transition team member, when she asked him whether it would be cheaper and faster to drop the Constellation Program Ares I rocket destined to loft the future Orion space capsule to orbit, and substitute in its place the United Launch Alliance rockets Delta IV (Boeing) or Atlas V (Lockheed) that are military heavy lifters.

Griffin very forcefully told her that those rockets couldn’t do all that Ares I must do.

In his speech, he noted that the Ares I has been in development for four years, long past the time when decisions should be made about what rocket to use.

The Obama administration still is considering the move, however.