Griffin on Commercialization II

06/23/05 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Keith has posted the 2nd part of his article on Mike Griffin's STA breakfast talk. This part is a transcript of the resulting Q&A session and it has the real nuggets. Bits such as the fact that they are negotiable on what is capable, especially on things such as “last mile” delivery, how the mass is divided among launches, etc. What was clear was that a lot of the hard questions haven't been answered yet. But it does sound like the right direction.

His comments on the Aldridge Commission, other sources of “recommendations” and some his tone didn't leave much of a warm fuzzy. But I can get over the lack of warm fuzzies. Business requires that. What bothers me is that Mike appears to have sole discretion over how things are done. That might be 'ok' while he's on your side, but what happens after he is gone and there is no policy infrastructure in place to ensure continuity? The reason the Aldridge Commission suggested reinstatement of the Presidential level space commission was to ensure that our space policy would survive different administrators.

About the only thing that suggests there is some check on our space policy becoming “Mike's Space Vision” is the fact that many of his AA appointments are dictated by the Whitehouse. Could that be our “space commission”? But even then that “commission” won't survive a party change in the Whitehouse.

What happens to all of Mike's commercialization efforts if Hillary Clinton wins the Whitehouse?