Mark said:

>Seems like he's making the right moves to me as well, but I'm
>prejudiced. The guy's speech at the founding of the Mars Society
>wowed me in terms of vision. He wasn't as exciting as Zubrin, but
>his examples sure drove his message home.

Few people are as exciting as Zubrin. Zubrin genuinely believes in the cause. He is also a natural born public speaker and a brilliant writer.

Griffin maybe the messiah. Unfortunately NASA is so far gone that even Jesus would be challenged to save the Space Program. I fear that Griffin may have accepted a poisoned chalice. It is depressing to think what Griffin could have done had he been administrator 10 years ago (or administrator instead of Goldin). NASA has two rotting albatrosses hanging from its neck, i.e. ISS and the Shuttle. The President's vision for exploring the Moon and Mars (VSE) will require a huge amount of resources. However no significant increase in funding is planned for NASA or even possible given the tight federal budget. This means they are required to gut aeronautics in order to fund VSE. This in turn means they'll have to shutdown the wind tunnels (mostly done already) and fire about a third of NASA's work force (the condemned have already been identified and notified).

Within NASA we all know about the roulette wheel management style. If you see a third of your co-workers having their careers terminated by a random decision then you can't help but think: "In 3 years time, I'll be the guy getting frog-marched out the front gate". At NASA Ames, literally everyone is preparing his or her escape strategy (same is true at NASA Langley, Glenn, etc.). The big layoffs in aeronautics are scheduled for Aug-Nov 2006. I suspect when that third of NASA Ames gets fired another third will leave on their own because they've had enough. NASA will then drop below critical mass and the party will be over. There is almost nothing Griffin can do to stop this.

Gary