Remarks to the

NASA Advisory Council

Michael D. Griffin
Administrator
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

6 July 2006

Good morning and thank you for inviting me today. While I

normally like to have an open dialogue and discussion without reading

from prepared remarks, I hope you don’t mind me speaking from

prepared text for a bit before opening up the dialogue with Q&A. The

reason I chose to do so today is that I wanted to put before you some

carefully-considered decisions about the future direction of our science

programs, and I wanted to make sure to elucidate the many various

factors behind those decisions, as I seek your advice going forward.

Moreover, I want to make sure that my rationale is made available to the

wider science community via our website.

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 We celebrated our nation’s 230th birthday, our Independence Day,

this week. One of the great strengths of our country is the principle of

freedom of speech, of entertaining vigorous debates on the great issues

of the day. For NASA, the great issue before us is how we carry out our

nation’s civil space program—in space science and human spaceflight—

and our aeronautics research programs.

We are a nation of laws, and to that end NASA is governed by the

Space Act of 1958 as our founding charter, just as the Declaration of

Independence and the Constitution are the founding charters of our

nation. The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 and Presidential policy—

the Vision for Space Exploration—provides the long-term direction for

our investments of time, resources, and energy in the nation’s space and

aeronautics program. And each year’s budget and appropriations

legislation provides detailed guidance in crafting an overall portfolio of

missions in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics

research. Thus, all NASA programs are “go-as-far-as-we-can-afford-to-

pay” at the national level.

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 When it comes to space science priorities, we are guided by the

decadal surveys of the National Academy of Sciences, and I’m glad that

we’ll soon have a decadal survey for Earth science priorities. This

brings us to your role. We’ve specifically asked for your collective and

personal advice as to how we carry out NASA’s science programs—

astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary science, and Earth science. In this

town, advice is often freely given, but in your case, we’re actively

seeking it. You are some of the most senior representatives and

emerging leaders of your respective fields of endeavor. So, I offer my

thanks to you all for agreeing to be part of the NASA Advisory

Council’s science subcommittees.

One of the issues where we need your advice concerns the fact that

human exploration of the Moon, Mars, near-Earth asteroids and the rest

of the solar system is not solely science-driven. However, given that

this effort will be undertaken, we are seeking the counsel of the science

community as to what science can be done in the course of the human

exploration of the solar system. Jack Marburger framed this issue very

well in his speech in March at the 44th annual Goddard Memorial

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Symposium. “The question about the Vision boils down to whether we

want to incorporate the Solar System in our economic sphere, or not.

Our national policy, declared by President Bush and endorsed by

Congress last December in the NASA Authorization Act, affirmatively

answers that question: The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance

U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space

exploration program.” Scientific discovery through human exploration

is one goal of the Vision for Space Exploration, but is not the only goal.

We will definitely add to the scientific body of knowledge for our

civilization about the real estate values in the vicinity of planet Earth,

and we will conduct scientific experiments along the way, much in the

fashion that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark gathered specimens,

made careful observations in their journals, and drew detailed maps of

the great American West 200 years ago.

Like Lewis & Clark’s maps of the newly-acquired territories that

expanded our nation’s economic sphere, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance

Orbiter will provide detailed terrain elevation data for future exploration

and use of the resources of the Moon, just as the Mars Global Surveyor

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and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are mapping details of the surface of

that planet in the search for evidence of potential subterranean flowing

water and future landing sites for robotic and human exploration. But

what other scientific endeavors should we pursue in low-Earth orbit, or

on the Moon, Mars, and near-Earth asteroids, during the course of

human exploration of our solar system over the next several decades?

We need the scientific community to help us answer that question.

As we organize our endeavors, I’d like to call your attention to the

recommendations from the 1990 decadal survey in astronomy and

astrophysics of the National Academy of Science, commonly known as

the Bahcall report. Back in 1990, this NRC committee studied the

suitability of the Moon for possible astronomical facilities and found

that, in the long term (though not even in the next decade), the chief

advantage of the Moon as a site for space astronomy was that it provided

a large, solid foundation on which to build widely separated structures

such as interferometers.

This same report from 1990, along with the next decadal survey,

“Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millenium” in 2000, and the

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annual report from the NRC’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory

Committee have helped me to make some difficult decisions recently by

informing me as to how the science community viewed certain priorities.

In 1990, both SOFIA and Astrometric Interferometry Mission, since re-

named the Space Interferometry Mission (or SIM), were regarded as

moderately priced programs compared to large programs like

SIRTF/Spitzer. Obviously, this survey underestimated the complexity,

cost, and schedule for both of these projects, but the decadal survey

ranked SOFIA as a higher science priority than SIM.

Even before I became NASA administrator in the spring of 2005, I

knew of problems with the SOFIA program, due to gross underestimates

of the technical complexity of integrating a 2.5-meter telescope onto a

Boeing 747 airborne platform. Costs grew to the point of making

SOFIA a large program, and the schedule kept slipping further to the

right.

Earlier this year, I believed that the best course of action at that

time was to withhold funding in FY 2007 for SOFIA, until we conducted

a thorough review and carefully considered the next steps for this

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project. That review included the option of terminating it. Having

received this report, I now believe the best course going forward is to

continue SOFIA, with some significant management changes.

After a careful and independent technical and management review

this past spring, NASA’s Program Management Council concluded that

the remaining technical challenges for SOFIA, like the stability of the

telescope within the aircraft’s Cavity Door Drive System, were not

insurmountable. However, we decided that we needed a team in place to

manage SOFIA having a greater level of management experience with

research aircraft. Thus, we decided that the Dryden Flight Research

Center should lead the development and flight tests of SOFIA, and we

need to simplify the contracts to ensure that Dryden project managers

have direct authority over the contractors actually performing work on

the aircraft. Dryden operates several research aircraft and has

considerable hands-on experience with such issues. Ames Research

Center will continue to retain science management responsibility for

SOFIA, though we may later re-evaluate the science management

responsibilities as the project continues.

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 Following the PMC’s technical and management review, we then

sought to determine whether SOFIA represents a better investment for

space science funding than other projects in the Universe/Astrophysics

portfolio. For this analysis, we were informed by the 1990 Bahcall

report, where SOFIA was ranked as a higher priority than SIM, the

2000 decadal survey which reaffirmed those recommendations, and the

NRC’s annual report from the Astronomy and Astrophysics Committee

last March, which said: "With a substantial expenditure on Hubble

Space Telescope servicing, increases in James Webb Space Telescope's

construction cost, and significant funding for SIM (despite its not earlier

than 2015-16 launch date), the Astrophysics program is overly biased

towards large missions. The science return from such missions is not in

doubt, but the lack of balance will impact future opportunities and the

diversity of scientific investigations. As discussed in more detail in the

report, substantial delays in the Shuttle availability for HST SM4, any

further cost growth in JWST, and the funding profile for SIM are all

issues that need to be considered. (SIM has a high lifecycle cost because

of both current significant spending and early ramp-up.)"

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 In addition to SOFIA, the Universe/Astrophysics theme has a

diverse portfolio of projects, ranging from “Great Observatory” missions

like the Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope,

SOFIA, and SIM, as well as smaller-class missions such as Kepler,

WISE, GLAST, Herschel, and Planck. Despite losing the opportunity to

make some observations in conjunction with the Spitzer Space

Telescope, SOFIA can still fulfill its science objectives to a degree

commensurate with our investment, and has the potential to produce

“Great Observatory” science over its 20-year design life. As an airborne

platform more readily able to incorporate and test a wide range of

astronomical instruments than a space telescope, SOFIA has a great deal

of flexibility and can benefit a broad range of astronomers while

complementing the capabilities of NASA’s space telescopes. As a

research aircraft, SOFIA can also provide hands-on training and

education for future astronomers.

Thus, in order to continue SOFIA out of the $1.5 billion spent per

year in NASA’s astronomy and astrophysics portfolio, we plan to

refocus SIM as a technology and research effort for finding Earth-like

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planets in other solar systems, a portfolio of projects which includes the

Kepler Space Telescope. NASA will then be informed by the priorities

in astronomy and astrophysics from the upcoming decadal survey, to be

initiated in two years.

I have made this consideration carefully, and I believe that it is the

best course of action for SOFIA as well as the rest of the astronomy and

astrophysics portfolio.

As I have told Charles Elachi, I am sensitive to the impacts to

scientists and engineers at JPL who worked on SIM. I have been laid off

twice in my career. He has my commitment to maintain JPL’s overall

workforce at its present level, with the assignment of other work as

necessary to do so. However, the priorities of the decadal surveys in

astronomy and astrophysics are clear, as is the advice of the NRC’s

annual report.

Clearly, we in the broader space community have a credibility

problem with our stakeholders in managing the technical complexity,

costs, and schedule for our programs. The science community must be

careful to not underestimate the costs and complexity of the missions

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they propose. NASA cannot afford everything our many constituencies

would like us to do.

However, having been a part of several Nunn-McCurdy breach

reviews for NPOESS and reading reports concerning other major DoD

programs, this problem is broader than NASA, and I have discussed it

extensively with former Congressman Dave McCurdy, Tom Young, my

counterparts in the DoD, and members of Congress. Our stakeholders

in Congress are concerned that NASA not under-estimate the costs or

complexity of our programs. To that point, the NASA Authorization

Act of 2005 requires even more stringent management actions than those

in the Nunn-McCurdy legislation for NASA missions costing more than

$250 million and which exceed their baselined costs. I would ask

everyone in the science community who proposes missions to NASA to

become familiar with that legislative provision, which is now the law of

the land and which I and my managers must follow.

In the future, decisions such as whether or not to continue missions

like SOFIA will not be left to the NASA Administrator, but will go to

the Congress. My #1 request to Mary and Colleen is that they bring

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forward realistic, executable programs within their budget. We will

need your help in this. Every time we have over-promised on a

program, we have lost credibility with our stakeholders.

Speaking of stakeholders, it’s now the time of the year when the

House and Senate committees mark-up their bills for the following

year’s appropriation. Recently, the chairman of NASA’s appropriation

subcommittee, Congressman Frank Wolf, displayed real leadership by

curtailing individual member’s earmarks for NASA and NSF.

“One person’s priority is another’s earmark,” Jack Marburger

points out, and he’s absolutely right. I believe the science community is

best governed by merit-based, peer review procedures. Our hope is that

the science community can form a consensus on its priorities, as with the

decadal surveys, which would argue against funds being diverted for one

person’s earmarks. Back in FY 1997, specific direction for NASA

constituted only $74 million for six specific projects. In FY 2006,

NASA was earmarked at a total of $568.5 million for 198 site-specific

and programmatic increases, with $48.3 million in site-specific earmarks

from NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and $63.4 million from our

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Education programs. As members of the science community, we need

your help in curtailing this level of earmarking among your colleagues.

NASA simply cannot afford everything that everyone would like us to

do. Chairman Wolf recognizes these difficult choices, and the need to

focus limited resources on programs most critical to our Nation. We are

working closely together on this.

I have also discussed with Chairman Wolf the need for more discussions

within the planetary science community to set priorities for missions to the outer

planets and moons of Jupiter and Saturn. These missions will cost a minimum of

several billion dollars. While a mission to Europa was ranked as the highest

planetary science priority in the decadal survey published in 2003, since then we

have learned that liquid water might also be found on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s

moons, and Titan also has an interesting methane-rich atmosphere with volcanic

activity. Neither of these two moons has a harsh radiation environment like that

of Europa, whose extreme radiation field could cripple a multi-billion spacecraft

in its orbit before it completed its science mission. Thus, I believe that the best

course of action moving forward is to permit the science community to

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determine the next outer planets mission, through a competitive selection process

under the New Frontiers program.

I would also like to note for the science community that, if you advocate

large missions exceeding the capabilities of the current EELV fleet, you should

consider taking advantage of new heavy-lift capabilities currently under

development for human exploration.

While the planetary science community may not have liked my decision, as

part of the FY 2007 budget formulation, to place the national priorities of

completing the International Space Station, retiring the Space Shuttle by 2010,

and bringing the CEV on-line no later than 2014, higher than the goals of

missions to the outer planets like Europa, I want to assure you that our nation

will carry out such missions. It simply will not occur as soon as some might

wish that mission to be. Does that make me less of a fan of missions to the outer

planets? Absolutely not. I’m trying to put forward an affordable and credible

portfolio of missions within NASA in accordance with the law of the land and

national policy, and to avoid making promises the Agency cannot keep. I

strongly believe this to be in the best interests of the overall space program.

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 These are the issues at the forefront of my mind today as I look out at the

landscape of NASA’s broad portfolio of science missions. We’re asking for your

advice on the journey ahead. This has been a momentous week for NASA, with

the second Return-To-Flight Shuttle mission underway on July 4th, and I’m glad

to be spending some time with you now. After this mission is completed, I will

convene a group of senior NASA managers to help me decide the best course

ahead for a servicing mission with the Shuttle to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Meriwether Lewis observed the following perspective in his journal on July

4th, 1805 which speaks across two centuries to many of us in NASA: "We all

believe that we are now about to enter on the most perilous and difficult part of

our voyage, yet I see no one repining; all appear ready to meet those difficulties

which wait us with resolution and becoming fortitude."

We have a lot of work to do. We are asking for your advice as to how we

carry out that work. Let me now open this dialogue to your questions.

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