May 30, 2008
Backwards Decision Making Process at NASA
ISDC 2008 - Friday Morning - Constellation panel, Hobbyspace
"Discusses the studies that justify the Constellation architecture that Griffin had decided on long before he came to NASA as director and long before the studies were done."
Editor's note: Whoa ... wait a minute. Mike Griffin loves to go on and on about all of the analysis that went into the decision to go with the Ares 1/V architecture and how those studies (ESAS etc.) arrived at the conclusion that it was the best path to take. Now ESMD's Doug Cooke is admitting in public what many people have long known: that Mike Griffin had already decided on this concept before he even came to NASA. That said, what was the purpose of ESAS and all of the trade studies Griffin refers to if the answer was already known - smoke and mirrors?
Editor's update: Now the editor of this site has changed it to state that this was his comment - (apparently) not what Doug Cooke actually said (sorry Doug). Oh well. So much for relying on that site for accurate liveblogging quotes. FWIW the editor also mangled what I and others said in an event at ISDC yesterday.
Posted by kcowing at May 30, 2008 1:00 PM
I read through the original post you linked to, and I suspect that may have been some editorializing on the part of its writer. He seemed to have a noticeable distaste for the Ares architecture.
Posted by: Anthony Kendall at May 30, 2008 12:45 PMThe line you are referring to is an editorial comment by the site author - the only part from Cooke is "Discusses the studies that justify the Constellation architecture". The site may have been updated since you picked up on that to make it more obvious.
Posted by: Boyd at May 30, 2008 12:48 PMYep, would need to see a transcript before claiming smoking gun.
Posted by: Norm Hartnett at May 30, 2008 1:48 PMThere is a paper, AIAA I think, that Claybaugh and Griffin wrote 2-years before ESAS describing the architecture that NASA has today.
Posted by: no one at May 30, 2008 6:31 PMIt is accurate to say that griffin had already made up his mind. The is a paper he put out with the Planetary society before he became administrator that describes using the stick for crew and a heavy lift for everything else. He has also been quoted as saying that FLO was the only way he knew how to do the moon.
The quote in your post is obviously something the author of the post wrote himself rather than being a quote from the speakers at the conference. It's very clear and was very clear before he typed in a response to the nasawatch post.
Naswatch should probably worry about what NASA is saying rather than a blogger!
Posted by: Nathan Rogers at May 30, 2008 7:30 PMThere are these:
"Heavy Lift Launch for Lunar Exploration"
Michael D. Griffin, 9 Nov. 2001
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep533/FALL2001/lecture29.pdf
and this:
"Extending Human Presence into the Solar System"
Michael D. Griffin, and others
July 2004
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/aim_for_mars/study-report.pdf
