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Military Space

Will Mike Griffin Be America's Other Space Administrator?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 27, 2017
Filed under
Will Mike Griffin Be America's Other Space Administrator?

Could the Pentagon’s new R&E head take over military space programs?
“We haven’t laid flat the final responsibilities there, but what’s really exciting about next year is we’ve got Mike Griffin on board,” who touts extensive experience in the space domain, the deputy told reporters Dec. 21. Griffin, a former NASA administrator during the George W. Bush administration, was formally nominated this month. He has yet to have a confirmation hearing but is expected to have one in January with the goal of having him in place by the Feb. 1 creation of the R&E job. As currently constructed, the R&E office is not planned to have a heavy hand in space issues, aside from its broad mandate to help develop new technologies. But Griffin’s space experience seems to have captured the interest of Shanahan as the deputy is working through broader changes to the Pentagon.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

22 responses to “Will Mike Griffin Be America's Other Space Administrator?”

  1. Jeff2Space says:
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    They must be nuts. Mike Griffin is responsible for the current mess at NASA. And by that I mean SLS, which replaced the pair of Ares launch vehicles that were envisioned by him. NASA never needed a new launch vehicle of its own.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Look for the Stick (Ares I) to return with a new name for military spacelift.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Easy to say now, and while I agree, it’s partly with the benefit of hindsight. With STS winding down, and the Augustine report in hand that scared everyone with numbers we know (now) to be hogwash, there were not very many directions to take. Regrettably Dr. Griffin’s choice turned out to be less than ideal.

      • Paul451 says:
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        it’s partly with the benefit of hindsight.

        Not really. People like Jeff and myself were calling Griffin a disaster while he was Administrator. And stories about his incompetence were widespread at the time.

        It was hindsight (during Griffin reign’s) that made me realise that Sean O’Keefe had been one of the better Admins in Nasa’s history. But it took a conscious effort to not immediately recognise the disaster that was Griffin.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          However Constellation Moon/Mars was proposed under O’Keefe, and despite his reputation for financial discipline there was even at that time serious doubt regarding O’Keefe’s claim that it was affordable, expressed eloquently by one John McCain.

          • Paul451 says:
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            No, “Constellation” under O’Keefe was just the name given to Bush’s VSE. It didn’t have Ares I/V until after Griffin took over. Indeed it precluded building new rockets unless absolutely necessary.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Yes, the program of the day was OSP, basically using the Atlas V and/or Delta IV Heavy to launch a capsule to replace the Shuttle. The CST100 Boeing is building to launch on the Atlas V has it roots in their OSP bid. If not for Dr. Griffin the OSP could have been flying in 2009, meaning NO gap in NASA launches to ISS.

            http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3

            BTW Boeing also proposed a scaled up version of the X-37B to enable runway landings.

          • Not Invented Here says:
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            Nice article from 2003, especially this part:

            Projected cost of the OSP effort, through 2009, is $11 billion to $13 billion.

            This offers another example of how much cheaper a public private partnership can be comparing to cost-plus, NASA’s total investment in Dragon and Dragon 2 development is only about $2 billion.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            And one of the solutions, the Boeing CST100 on an Atlas V, was a design that was similar to one proposed for the OSP.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Aerodynamically the X-37 is an elegant solution based on lessons from the Shuttle.

            The wing-and-fuselage configuration gave the Shuttle higher lift and lower drag than a lifting body, and the delta wing allowed a smooth transition from the deep stall of atmospheric entry to gliding flight, but the control surfaces had a short moment arm making the CG position critical, often requiring large amounts of ballast which stole from payload mass, and the control surface hinges were exposed to high temperatures and difficult to insulate, while the vertical tail was in the wake during entry and of little use.

            The X-37 retained the forgiving delta wing but put it amidships near the CG and replaced the elevons and vertical tail of the Shuttle with all-moving V-tail which is well behind the center of lift, in the airstream and effective throughout entry, and providing a long moment arm for excellent pitch trim authority to allow flexibility in CG location.

            Unfortunately the narrow fuselage of the X-37C would have required the crew to sit in single file without a view ahead through a conventional windshield while the vehicle landed autonomously, putting a damper on the piloting experience. That said, the B-58 had tandem seating for its 3-man crew so maybe, with virtual reality replacing the Shuttle’s heavy windshield, it would be acceptable.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            ‘spam in a can’. Not popular in the Astronaut Office.

            On the other hand, these days astronauts are much more likely to be Mission Specialists. Perhaps little opposition to a ridesharing program back to earth.

      • Matthew Black says:
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        The Ares based architecture was never going to be affordable without major increases to NASA’s budget; which was NOT going to happen. The dinosauric Shuttle-based Ares were the epitome of pork-flavored rocketry; though the large Side-Mount launcher proposed by John Shannon and others – an updated Shuttle-C, essentially – might have stood a chance at being affordable.

        Otherwise, the launchers of choice for the VSE should have been uprated Atlas V’s and Delta IV-Heavies. Eventually; they could have been replaced by a Commercially-competed launcher with or without partial reusability.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Looking at the image that accompanies your posts- some guy playing a guitar- I saw a T-shirt the other day:

          “I might be old, but I saw all the cool bands”.

          • Matthew Black says:
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            Heh; that’s me the time I won’t a national science fiction convention masquerade in 2015, down here in New Zealand. It was sort of a silver-sprayed cyborg rockstar costume. I had a battery powered amp hiding under my cape and played heavy metal riffs…

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Completely agree. The point I was making though is a little off-center: the numbers we are starting to expect on new hardware, and on the development of new hardware, are seriously skewed by recent experience with SX and BO, et. al. Put another way, sans SX, the SLS numbers, while high, would be seen in a more traditional light.

          I don’t think one can over-estimate the effect that COTS/ partnerships with private industry will have on acquisition going forward by NASA or the Pentagon. These revised expectations make many of our earlier decisions look pretty silly.

          And amen on man-rating Delta/Atlas. I never understood how the shuttle-crazies won that battle.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        This was a bad decision in “hindsight” only for those that supported Ares I/Ares V from the beginning. There were two opposing “factions”. One said EELVs were “good enough” and NASA should just procure commercial launches going forward. Any growth needed in lift capacity could be had by making bigger versions of the EELVs (just give ULA money).

        The other opposing group cooked up the DIRECT proposal, which was a minimal changes inline SDV which would have used 4 segment SRBs (no changes) as well as a core stage built using ET tooling and using SSMEs for propulsion. DIRECT’s upper stage would use the RL-10 engine rather than trying to develop something new (e.g. J2-X).

        The cherry on top of the sundae was the fact that the appendices for the ESAS study weren’t published with the report. The reason given was that they contained proprietary data (presumably from the EELV manufacturers). Without those appendices, it was impossible for an outside (independent) observer to verify the conclusions of the report.

  2. Keith Vauquelin says:
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    Griffin burned NASA’s future on the harbor of his ego and politics.

    My gut tells me to be vigilant for Part Deaux, from Mr. Griffin.

    Some how, the following words seem apropos, when considering a victory of Griffin installed with the Defense Department:

    “For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments.

    The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses.

    A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”