>"I'm a little worried about that SDIO connection because Griffin might be part of a Bush hidden agenda to militarize NASA (that's my own paranoia coming through"

I don't think that's a crazy worry, but think it probably isn't as bad as that either.

It definitely is the case that Rumsfeld is a HUGE supporter of military space programs, and so is the group around VP Cheney. Space not only for intel, nav, comm, and similar uses, but space-based missile defense, anti-satellite weapons, etc. If you look at what the crowd was writing in the late 1990s, before taking office, they thought we were massively under-utilizing space for military purposes, and in particular thought we needed to get past the hesitation to put weapons systems up there (for taking out Chinese satellites, for example).

In fact, back in the 1960s, Rumsfeld opposed the Apollo program, and both manned missions and space science generally, arguing that they were a silly diversion of money and engineering talent away from military space programs. I'd argue it shows a narrowness of vision that he still suffers from. My bet is that the international prestige and goodwill generated by Apollo, as well as the degree to which it insipired people to enter aerospace professions, bought us a lot more than would have dumping a bunch more money into black programs.

In any case, I'm sure that Griffin's prior military and CIA work was a plus. I'd imagine it reassured the national security types that even if Griffin is a pie-in-the-sky space buff, he'll listen -- and listen intelligently -- when the DoD or intel community needs something from NASA. If that's as far as it goes, that's not much of a problem.

If Griffin's intentions or his marching orders extend to using NASA as a way of doing a lot of military-directed R&D and infrastructure development without putting it on the Pentagon budget, that'd be bad. His resume makes that conceviable, but Bush could have found someone much better qualified to do that, too.