Orion

The Orlando Sentinel reported a "heated" 40-minute conversation between a "red-faced" Griffin and Garver at a book-publication party at NASA headquarters last week According to witnesses Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama.

President Elect Obama has sent teams to every government agency in order to ensure smooth transition between administrations. Their job is to dig through budgets and plans to find anything that may cause problems for the incoming administration. The Bush White House has ordered full cooperation.

Griffin appears to consider this a personal insult. Witnesses to the "animated conversation" reported Garver as saying, "Mike, I don’t understand what the problem is. We are just trying to look under the hood."

"If you are looking under the hood, then you are calling me a liar," Griffin replied. "Because it means you don’t trust what I say is under the hood."

Griffin was appointed by President Bush four years ago to lead NASA in the efforts for a return Moon shot by 2020 and then on to Mars. He has overseen the selection of Constellation, with its NASA-designed Ares I rocket and Orion capsule for the job. Griffin would like to stay on under the new administration, "under the right circumstances."

Budgetary problems and technical issues with Constellation have been the subject of the transition team's scrutiny. They have asked NASA how much could be saved by cancelling the Area I rocket. They have also asked about accelerating the program. The cancellation question has obviously worried Griffin.

The Orlando Sentinel also reports Griffin is orchestrating a campaign to defend Constellation. It says Griffin is:

"...scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program."

NASA's Chief of Strategic Communications, Chris Shank denied there was an argument or that Griffin is trying to keep information from the Garver's team. He denied that Griffin is seeking a meeting with Obama.

He did acknowledge that Griffin felt the team lack the expertise to assess some of the information they have been given. Griffin, an engineer, has said the Garver is "not qualified" to make decisions on NASA’s rocketry program.

Garver has refused to comment, but people close to her say she has confirmed "unpleasant" exchanges with Griffin and other NASA officials. Garver recently told a Washington meeting of aerospace representatives, "there will be change" to NASA policy. She hinted that there would be a new administrator soon.

The situation is exasperated by Barack Obama’s lukewarm support for the Moon shot during his election campaign. His position early in the primaries was to see more NASA spending on education at the expense of the Moon landings. He shifted several times during the campaign.

Obama only came out firmly in support of the new Moon shot when if became obvious that the loss of jobs in important battleground states such as Florida could derail his bid for the Presidency.

However, these pledges were made when the federal budgetary considerations was very different from those today. It would not be hard to find justification for cutting NASA's budget.

Image Credit: Lockheed Martin Corp.

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