NASA top dog Mike Griffin is not a happy man. His anger about the retirement of the space shuttle has surfaced as yet another email leaks out of the space agency.

“Exactly as I predicted, events have unfolded in a way that makes it clear how unwise it was for the US to adopt a policy of deliberate dependence upon another power for access to ISS,” writes Griffin in the email obtained by the Orlando Sentinel. “In a rational world, we would have been allowed to pick a Shuttle retirement date to be c consistent with Ares/Orion availability…”

In other words: stopping flying the Shuttle before its replacement is ready is a bonehead move. Griffin even goes on to claim that “retiring the Shuttle is a jihad rather than an engineering and program management decision” for the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget.

If he was that angry before the email leaked he must be apoplectic now his private thoughts are all over the internet…

The Sentinel says, “The tone of the note depicts a man watching as his finely crafted plans for a revitalized space-faring NASA appear to be melting before his eyes.”

Griffin has declared that reporting of the email failed to “provide the contextual framework for my remarks” as it was actually a discussion about the impact of Russia’s recent war with Georgia and the potential knock ons from that (Houston Chronicle, see Nature for more on Russia-Georgia).

This is still potentially very embarrassing for Griffin, who as recently as September 2nd declared in an interview with Space.com:

As I think you know, presidential policy has been that shuttle will be retired at the end of 2010 and that certainly is a position I have agreed with and I’ve made no bones about it. We need to get the shuttle behind us so we can move forward with new systems that will take us back to the Moon and later on be the building blocks for going to Mars. I think you guys both know that nobody believes that more strongly than I do.

Image: NASA