Griffin - The Best Thing to Happen to NASA

[coldfusion55]

For a long time now, NASA has just been a constituency-oriented, big, bloated bureaucracy with no definable purpose. Fortunately, that is about to change to some degree.<br /><br />Michael Griffin is a no BS kind of guy. He can see through the crap that people try to propagate as rational, worthy ideas for NASA to implement in either single missions or the general roadmap. (on-orbit assembly as opposed to a new HLV, using the moon or the ISS as a refueling dock for Mars missions, international collaboration, letting hundreds of bureaucrats keep their unproductive jobs, etc.)<br /><br />Hopefully, Griffin can trailblaze through the forests of red tape and reestablish NASA as the efficient, goal-oriented, and risk-taking organization that it was during the Apollo Era. <br /><br />He can disband the obsolete, pointless shuttle program and contract out <u>private</u> companies to develop the next RLV (private companies who can build a <u>better</u> engineered vehicle in a <u>third</u> of the time and at a <u>tenth</u> of the cost).<br /><br />He can sanction the development of a new HLV, whether it be designed by NASA or by a private company. The HLV would be built with the intention of having parallel Moon and Mars programs, <u>not only</u> for a Moon program; hence it would have enough payload capacity for full scale human Mars missions.<br /><br />He can follow the precedent set by the X-Prize and create a profit motive for new entrepreneurs to develop useful, efficient hardware to further the cause of a robust space program and permanent colonization of space.<br /><br />He has hinted at all of these to a non-negligable extent. The degree to and speed with which these things are done will rest on his level of ambition. These plans are the only hope for NASA if they ever wish to be taken seriously as a space program... otherwise, the entrepreneurs will surpass them within a decade.<br /><br />-The profit motive fuels innovation.-

 

[mattblack]

Too early to tell yet, but he's certainly the best thing to happen to Nasa since James Webb.<br /><br />But Mike Griffin; he certainly seems to be the guy for the job. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[wvbraun]

I agree that Griffin is the right man for the job. However we should not make him the new James Webb or Wernher von Braun when he hasn't done anything yet. Let's wait and see, I think he'll do a great job.<br /><br />Wouldn't it be awesome if Griffin got Zubrin and/or Pete Worden to work for ESMD?<br /><br />

 

[shuttle_rtf]

><br />He can disband the obsolete, pointless shuttle program<<br /><br />Give it up capsual fans. The STS program still has a massive purpose.