This is the first time that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has spoken at LPSC — perhaps a sign of the growing importance of the conference. But there is also a valedictory air to Griffin’s talk tonight. Many doubt that he will survive the coming election and continue as administrator in a new US administration. It is the first time I have seen Griffin — always competent, ever irascible, seemingly indomitable — look weary.
The main conference hall is packed. People line the walls. Griffin begins reading from a prepared script. His speeches are always well written. But tonight, his delivery is flat. At one point, he offers perfunctory praise to the Mercury Messenger mission, and says he is looking forward to the next flyby. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait,” he says in a monotone.
What? Is he being sarcastic? No, he’s just not very good at faking enthusiasm. Griffin is a straight-shooter who refuses to wear rose-colored glasses. His lucidity and clarity are never questioned. He’s not so much a pessimist as he is a pathological realist.
He continues speaking, mostly in the dark, until a technician finally realizes that the lights above the podium need to be turned on. Griffin opens the floor for questions. His energy comes back. He relishes this part.
Usually, Griffin is seated before Congressional representatives at hearings. They query him, and they demand answers. They often want to understand why the NASA program in their home district isn’t being favored. Griffin has to be polite. But he has no difficulty, ever, in parrying their parochial concerns.
And they are always parochial. Why does Griffin always have to explain that he has finite resources? That to fund a current project, he has to take from another? That there are always winners and losers? And that the losers are never happy?
At the LPSC talk, it isn’t much different: the losers line up at the microphones to complain. The current losers in the NASA budget are scientists in the Mars program, which saw significant reductions this year. A European scientist says that she will have difficulties convincing European ministers that the US is a serious partner in Mars Sample Return if the US is not seen as reliable, and reliably engaged in Mars exploration. “We’re having our legs cut out from under us,” she says.
Griffin, now aroused, fires straight back. Mars funding is tapering down, he explains, as the flagship Mars Science Laboratory tapers. If NASA is ever going to fly a flagship mission to Europa or Titan or Ganymede, funding for it needs to ramp up. That money has to come from somewhere. He notes that the National Academies has recently given NASA report card grades for its various activities. NASA got an ‘A’ for Mars exploration. It got a ‘D’ for outer planet exploration.
Finally, Griffin says, it’s not like the Mars program has been zeroed out. It still is getting roughly $400 million year — hardly “chump change.” The program is merely being returned to its 25-year average level of funding. Griffin insists that he will not tolerate a sense of entitlement among any of NASA’s programs. “Now, I’ll be gone soon. But while I’m here, that won’t happen.”
A few minutes later, someone else stands up to complain about the Mars cuts in a different way. Griffin tries a golf analogy, from his days as a competitive amateur. If his putting was suffering, just as outer planets exploration was, would he really want to spend all his time at the driving range? Still later, a graduate student circles back yet again to the Mars budget. What would happen to all the students who had specialized in Mars science? she asks. Griffin’s advice: “Don’t specialize. Specialization is for insects.”
Griffin seems to be just warming up. His penchant for argumentation is matched by a gift for rhetoric. In the talk he quotes both JFK and LBJ. He seems to alternate between ‘high’ and ‘low’ rhetoric, as if JFK and LBJ were hovering above each shoulder. One moment, he’s repeating an old folky aphorism from the South (“The sun don’t shine on the same dog all the time.”). And the next moment, he’s quoting Shakespeare (“The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.”)
Finally, the Mars complaints are exhausted, and a questioner, recognizing the autumnal tone of the evening, asks Griffin what he will view as his legacy. What is his greatest achievement and what is his greatest disappointment?
Griffin says he is most proud of choosing top managers at NASA headquarters that were experts within their respective fields. They aren’t just middle-level managers who were seeking bureaucratic sinecures. And Griffin could just say this, that he is proud of his lieutenants. He could say it blandly. Instead he says this: “You may agree or disagree with some of the decisions my management team makes. But none of them took the job at HQ as a nervous virgin. They all had been around the block a few times in the space business.”
His greatest disappointment? Not being able to minimize the long gap between the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the development of the replacement Ares rockets. Then Griffin adds, “I also regret the loss of my two handicap which I had when I joined.”
The last questioner actually thanks Griffin – she apparently is glad that an outer planet mission will be funded. She also asks about the future of small rocket launches. Griffin shrugs off the praise so he can dwell on the awful rocket situation. “Space transportation in this country is in a mess. Has been for years. Is going to be.” He’s inconsolable. No one would ever accuse him of drinking the Kool-Aid. If anything, he knows how to turn lemonade into lemons. “I find it to be a distressing, and nearly disgusting, situation.”
And on that jarring note, he ends his talk. The crowd rises to give him a standing ovation. But he’s already off the podium. I can’t stop smiling. I can’t imagine any replacement Administrator matching Griffin’s particular brand of curmudgeonly competence. Why is it so unthinkable for the next US administration to want him back?