As was noted in one of my latest blog posts, the Obama transition team has been weighing their options from a financial standpoint and one of their targets is the Ares I rocket currently under development by NASA. Understandably, NASA has been getting a little skiddish over the thoughts of having the axe taken to the Constellation Program. It’s rapidly becoming clear that the current NASA administration and the Obama transition team are not getting along. What this means for the Constellation Program is anyone’s guess at this point. Whatever happens in the next few weeks between NASA and Obama will surely determine the course of America’s space program for the years and decades ahead.
Here’s an excerpt from a report compiled by the Orlando Sentinel’s space blog:
NASA has become a transition problem for Obama
posted by Robert Block
CAPE CANAVERAL – NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.
In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.
In addition, 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, sources said.
Griffin’s resistance is part of a no-holds-barred effort to preserve the Constellation program, the delayed and over-budget moon rocket that is his signature project.
Chris Shank, NASA’s Chief of Strategic Communications, denied that Griffin is trying to keep information from the team, or that he is seeking a meeting with Obama.
He also insisted that Griffin never argued with Garver.
“We are working extremely well with the transition team,” he said.
However, Shank acknowledged Griffin was concerned that the six-member team – all with space policy backgrounds – lack the engineering expertise to properly assess some of the information they have been given….READ MORE