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From the Executive Director

Griffin Speaks About Science and NASA

September 16 , 2006

Louis Friedman, Executive Director
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Louis Friedman, Executive Director

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin gave a speech to employees at Goddard Space Flight Center on September 12, in which he defended Administration cuts to space science over the next five years and responded to criticisms -- like those made by The Planetary Society -- that the Administration is anti-science.

Download a PDF of Michael Griffin's speech in its entirety.

In his speech, Griffin made many valid points, and I respect the difficulties of his job. I know well his roots as a robotic mission designer and science supporter, and I understand the need for NASA to balance many interests. But he has been handed an anti-science, and even anti-exploration, policy and an over-constrained budget by the Administration, and his defense of it is like pointing out a few good trees in a rotting forest.

He has been told by his bosses to take money from other parts of NASA to pay for all the emergency shuttle changes following the Columbia accident. Then he was told what programs he could not take money from -- space station construction, new launch vehicles, and robotic and human missions to the Moon on the totally arbitrary time schedule set forth in the Vision for Space Exploration.

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So, as he explains in his speech, he had to raid the science budget for the shuttle. That was o.k. with the Administration.

He didn’t explain why 95% of the raid was from planned planetary exploration and research. Nor did he explain why the Administration singled out Astrobiology for a 50% cut. Those seem to have been policy decisions.

Griffin discussed science and exploration at some length in his speech. Although he rejected that science is competing against exploration, he still didn’t really accept that they are two parts of a whole. Exploration activities by robotic craft were objectives laid out in the Vision for Space Exploration.

The original Vision document from the Administration includes the following statements now dropped from the Administration’s planning:

  • “conduct advanced telescope searches for Earth-like planets,”
  • “Develop and demonstrate power generation, propulsion, life support, and other key capabilities required to support more distant, more capable, and/or longer duration human and robotic exploration of Mars and other destinations,”
  • “Conduct robotic exploration across the solar system for scientific purposes and to support human exploration. In particular, explore Jupiter’s moons…,”
  • “Use lunar exploration activities…. to support sustained human space exploration to Mars and other destinations.”
    These were not secondary objectives – they were equal with others.

Griffin cited the Administration’s redirection of space policy noting that White House Science Advisor John Marburger declared last March that, “the Vision for Space Exploration is fundamentally about bringing the resources of the solar system within the economic sphere of mankind.”

Actually Marburger declared, “questions about the Vision boil down to whether we want to incorporate the Solar System in our economic sphere, or not.” Did “our” refer to “mankind?” Marburger clarifies that by quoting President Bush in his next sentence, "The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program” (italics, mine). In case anyone missed the point, he then said, “It [the Vision] subordinates space exploration to the primary goals of scientific, security and economic interests."

This is why The Planetary Society is fighting not just for science, but also for space exploration. Griffin understands this well and indeed noted his own roots as a robotic explorer. He makes valid points about some scientists thinking that space missions should be conducted for science only. We agree that robotic missions like Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, and Hubble are not just carried out for science. They are great exploration missions. And the scientists who resigned from the NASA Advisory Council also know that missions are not conducted for science only -- they have devoted their lives to exploration.

No, the difference of opinion is not science vs. exploration. It is about the subordination of space exploration to imagined American interests in controlling cislunar space and bringing its resources into the U.S. economic sphere. The Vision for Space Exploration has been refocused on finding and mining putative, hypothetical lunar resources. (Marburger thinks lunar oxygen is like gold and can be mined cheaply for economic advantage in making rocket fuel -- a ludicrous idea which has no economic or engineering underpinnings.) The earlier goals of space exploration being conducted throughout the solar system, searching for extraterrestrial life, leading to human exploration of Mars and expanding human presence outward has been subordinated to chasing (almost literally) the “gold in them thar hills.

-- Louis Friedman

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