Apparently, NASA administrator Mike Griffin is a complete bonehead. There's really no other way to describe his recent interactions with the Obama transition team. From an Orlando Sentinel report:
NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is "not qualified" to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.
In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.
I'm not an expert in the intricate political maneuverings involved in transitions, but I've got a hunch that telling the head of the transition team that she's not qualified to judge his program has got to be right up near the top of the list of things to not do. She might not be qualified to judge Griffin's programs, but she's sure as hell qualified to judge his behavior.
Alert readers might note that I said that questioning the qualifications of the transition advisor assigned to your department is near the top of the list of things not to do. I didn't say that it's right at the top of the list. I think that position is occupied by something else Griffin said recently.
Soon after, Garver and Griffin engaged in what witnesses said was an animated conversation. Some overheard parts of it."Mike, I don't understand what the problem is. We are just trying to look under the hood," Garver said.
"If you are looking under the hood, then you are calling me a liar," Griffin replied. "Because it means you don't trust what I say is under the hood.
Mike, it's her job to look under the hood. It's not her job to take your word for anything. In fact, she's not supposed to take your word for things. A new President needs an independent view of what's happening in the agencies. You get an independent view by sending people to go look under the hood.
It's business, Mike, nothing personal.
Oh, well. Maybe taking a break from public service for a few years will give him time to reflect on the complexities of interpersonal relationships as applied to keeping your job.
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well, running NASA isn't exactly rocket science. 8-)
Griffith has five masters degrees to go with his PhD. Sure sign of someone who feels a little insecure when challenged on issues.
Griffin is pushing for continuing manned spaceflight, which saw its heyday in the Apollo era. The contractors didn't want that era to end, because they loved the money lavished on them. Just as military contractors tell the Pentagon what new weapons it wants, so do the aerospace contractors make US space policy. In the furtherance of their enrichment, we got the Shuttle and the International Space Station, and now they want to put men on the Moon and Mars, using solid fuel rockets alone, which will never work for the acoustic violence they produce.
We've sent robotic spacecraft to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, spending far less than manned spaceflight has been costing, and gaining a towering science return compared to practically nothing from manned spaceflight.
We stopped needing astronauts in the Sixties. The Shuttle had to be manned, NASA said, because no one could control a spacecraft from the ground. The Shuttle made exactly one piloted flight, the first one; from then on, all flights have been controlled from the ground.
Right now we have people remotely piloting attack aircraft half a world away with great success, so the claim of impossibility of control 90 miles up was a bold lie.
We have robotic spacecraft crawling around on the surface of Mars. We had one land on a comet. We had a fleet rendezvous with Halley. Our spacecraft are becoming increasingly sophisticated with machine vision, real time decision making, and autonomy.
Griffin wants to keep shoveling tax dollars at the same contractors that have been in this since the early years, and are much the same set of contractors that are running the Pentagon and setting our nation's foreign policy.
Can you say "career-limiting move" children?
But this from Axis of Weasel gets a WTF?:
The Shuttle made exactly one piloted flight, the first one; from then on, all flights have been controlled from the ground.
Huh? The astronauts don't fire on-orbit maneuvres? Anyway, I'm pretty damn sure someone flies the re-entry. Now whether we would require such an elaborate re-entry scheme, if it wasn't carrying fragile high-value cargo (ie: the crew) AND we wanted to re-use the vehicle, is a whole 'nother discussion.
Wasn't this the same fellow who did some memo leaking a while back? Or is my memory going?
Re Axis of Weasel
But doesn't Mr. Weasel know that Dr. Phil Plait over at badastronomy claims that people like him, Bob Park, Steven Weinberg, and myself don't know what we are talking about? (end snark)