Griffin demanded to continue the Constellation project, and apparently was not accepted. Alluded to saying that the agency should successfully carry out any role assigned to it and that in a democracy, heads of government agencies do not set policy
As we predicted on November 18, NASA Director General Michael Griffin resigns on the eve of President-elect Barack Obama's entry into the White House. Griffin, a space professional who headed the Department of Space Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and in his youth worked at NASA, was appointed by President Bush in 2005 to rebuild NASA after the Columbia disaster, which he did successfully, and is also associated with Project Constellation to replace the shuttle and will allow NASA to continue to the Moon and Mars. obama, as he portrayed in his election campaign is not a follower of the project.
"If the next president asks me to continue, I would be happy to do so," Griffin told NASA employees at the time, "but I doubt it will happen. In any case, if he asks me to stay, I will demand that the White House not interfere in the direction NASA is going."
Last Thursday, Griffin convened a press conference in which he detailed the current state of the agency, thanked the agency's employees for their hard work and called on them to support his successor, whose identity has not yet been determined: "We are in a period of change of power that ends this Tuesday with Obama's inauguration as president. However, the important work of our agency continues. The Mars rovers are now celebrating five years on the Red Planet despite being designed to operate for several weeks. "
"Just on Thursday, our scientists talked about the discovery of Methane on Mars Which means there may be life on Mars, as well as elsewhere in the universe. We are also preparing for the launch of a shuttle on February 12, so despite the change of government, the work continues."
Those close to Obama's transition team told the Universe Today website that it is likely that the new president will ask to re-examine Project Constellation - the system that will replace the shuttle and which is suffering from technical and financial problems that could delay the first launch planned for 2015. Some estimate that Project Constellation will be canceled and replaced by additional shuttle flights and planning Different of the missiles.
We were able to pick ourselves back up after the Columbia disaster, and find technically stable solutions to get the shuttles back into flight - and sure it was difficult - and finish assembling the space station, thereby fulfilling our commitment to do so. We got back on our feet, we put top-level managers in charge of our centers. There is nothing more difficult than recovering from a disaster like this and moving on, and we did. I'm proud that we managed to do this without destroying things that worked well. Space science research also continued and continues to yield good results.
35 years ago I was a doctoral student right after Apollo and before the launch of Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz project. I worked in the field of aeronautical engineering at the University of Maryland and within this framework I also worked at NASA.
I remind everyone that the heads of federal agencies in a democratic country do not set policy. In fact, it would be a grave mistake if we did. It's nice that our opinion is asked about the policy that should be adopted, but we do not set policy. We perform it. Policy is determined by elected and appointed officials at the national level and elected in the legislatures. These two groups must work together to instill uniformity of direction to agency managers in the field, and we are doing everything we can to accomplish it.
NASA will look good, whether we are required to return to the moon and establish a permanent station on its surface and then continue to Mars or whether it is assigned another mission. We as an agency will look good if we direct our efforts to fulfilling the task, with all the spirit and technical ability and I know that we will be able to complete any task successfully.
A significant part of his speech was devoted to increasing the need for international cooperation in the field of space and indeed during his term Griffin participated in many meetings with his colleagues from all over the world and even Call Europe move towards manned launches.
It is not yet known who will replace Griffin, but the name of retired general Jay has already come up. Scott Grayshon, who was Obama's military adviser during the presidential campaign.
