Why not Marsha Ivins? Whom else should Time have chosen to do a bit on Mike Griffin as part of the Time 100? A critic?

Mr. Griffin shows no inspiration. He's been dead set against shuttle since he originally worked for NASA. Perhaps he forgot about what the shuttle was dreamed to do. Carry things to low Earth orbit. That's it. A space truck. It has done it's job VERY well...as a matter of fact, both shuttle accidents were caused by sub assemblies of the space shuttle vehicle, and poor decision making on NASA's part!! Look at the telemetry, and you will see it was true. Both orbiters were doing exactly what they should have been doing during each event.

You want to inspire others to dream Mr. Griffin? Stop thinking of spam in a can, and think out of the box! We've done this...been there...wrote the book.

Mr. Griffin, if you want to stop flying shuttle...fine. You want to use some sort of SRB derivative...fine. But why step back to the way we did business 50 years ago?? Instead, think of some derivative that we could build in space and then send out. Come on man...if Gene Roddenberry could dream of stuff as a science fiction writer, then why can't WE dream up stuff as science fiction engineers?

The nation's leaders, both the President and Congress, along with help from the CAIB, reached a consensus that the Shuttle's time was up. That decision was made months before Mike Griffin took the helm of NASA. Rather, this decision was reached under Sean O'Keefe.

Go Mike!!!

Ares I/V is very expensive. Even if it arrives on time and on budget, its still going to have a low flight rate. We were told "Safe, Simple, Soon". We are getting the opposite. If Ares is the answer to our manned space flight needs, Mike Griffin needs to do a better job explaining why.

I really dislike how people, including Mr. Cowing, are SO critical of Mr. Griffin. I totally understand the need to question leadership, but nothing positive is ever said about the man at this Web site. Isn't he better than Mr. O'Keefe? Who do you think should be administrator Mr. Cowing? The main complaint that I hear about organizations like NASA are that scientists are led by people with MBAs, e.g. business men. Well, for the first time in a long while we have someone in place at NASA that is not just a business oriented fiscal manager, but a real scientist. I think there is something to be said for that.

Ares / Orion is indeed safe, simple, soon, although like most catchphrases, this is an oversimplifications. Ares/Orion is considerably safer than the shuttle, although spaceflight will always be a dangerous business. Ares/Orion is as simple as possible, but no simpler. And they'll be fielded as soon as possible, almost certainly sooner than other proposed shuttle replacements, given a challenging engineering and budgetary environment.

Weird... Ivins' Time entry reads like a schoolgirl crush.

And what the heck does it mean "derive the theory" of a technical concept? Is that what ESAS did with Ares I? Did we only get the theory of a working rocket, but not the practice?

"Isn’t he better than Mr. O’Keefe?"

No.

O'Keefe greased the political wheels to enable the VSE, brought over a billion new dollars to the agency, and knew enough to leave the engineering decisions to practicing engineers.

Griffin ham-handed politics have pissed off multiple constituencies and weakened support for the VSE, seen several billion dollars taken out of the agency's budget, and strapped the agency with his needlessly duplicative, expensive, and technically crippled pet design for an intermediate-lift ETO launcher.

"The main complaint that I hear about organizations like NASA are that scientists are led by people with MBAs, e.g. business men. Well, for the first time in a long while we have someone in place at NASA that is not just a business oriented fiscal manager, but a real scientist."

Griffin used to be an engineer. Now he's a manager. He was never a scientist.

And O'Keefe's predecessor Goldin was a former engineer. Most NASA Administrators are. It hasn't been that long since one was at the helm.

Marsha knows nothing about communications. She is an arrogant bully whose only source of power is her close relationship with the administrator. When someone doesn't play by her rules she shoots off an angry email to Griffin. It reminds me of a whiney brat who screams to Mom when she doesn't get her way.

The only reason there isn't open warfare against her often abusive actions is her cozy relationship with the administrator and the spineless and rudderless leadership here in Texas.

How can someone as smart as our administrator be so blinded by someone so petty? Marsha, leave the media to the experts. They don't tell you how to fly.

Congratulations to the administrator on his selection by Time, however, there are a lot of people looking forward to the next election.

Grr. Marsha says: "Thanks to him manned exploration of the Moon and Mars is becoming a real possibility." It is WAY too early to conclude something like that. Probably, Mike's insistence on his way or the highway condemns us to a long gap in the ability to put people into space. What happens during that gap will determine if we can go back to the Moon (without renting space on another organization's craft).

And Fred says: "Orion is considerably safer than the shuttle" when Orion is a paper vehicle, with the possibility of being safer. But it is just a concept right now - years away from flight. And at first, it will be a test vehicle which you must assume will be much LESS safe than the Shuttle - with lots of undiscovered "gotchas".

Puhleeez, bias? Of course. Any regular reader of TIME knows this "nomination" feature is all about who you think would be appropriate, and who knows better than a close friend? There is no intention of impartiality here.

Now, asking Marsha for her opinion and that opinion are as worthy of debate as any other suggestions in that feature, but hey, everyone (even a bully) is entitled to their opinions!

The last administrator with any real vision was Adm. Truly

The agency has been taking a financial and inspirational nose-dive since the "Goldin Era"

Time: "NASA is dead serious about having footprints back on the moon by 2020..."

NASA's Vision for Space Exploration shouldn't just be about footprints on the moon in 2020. From the "Renewed Spirit" VSE document: "The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program."

This is the reason for the VSE, and the yardstick against which the implementation must be judged. Focusing specifically on the part that is intended to get people back to the moon, how well does ESAS advance these 3 crucial interests?

The ESAS hardware is designed internally by NASA to be built by government contractors and operated by NASA. It is not a commercial transportation system that can be applied to other markets and grow the space economy, nor does it feature major commercial subsystems like a fuel depot, commercial launchers, or tugs. There is no "on-ramp" to integrate such commercial subsystems into the architecture. As a result, the economic benefit of the system is severely limited.

Security and science benefits of ESAS are similarly limited. They don't need a giant government launcher in 2020. They need operationally responsive, economic launchers sized to launch modest satellites and probes now. In other words, a lunar architecture that used commercial launchers or shared fixed costs with existing EELVs would serve science and security better.

There is, however, a compromise where NASA could continue ESAS while doing its share for economics, security, and science. It should expand the ISS commercial transportation effort to include crew, whether the hardware is new, existing EELVs, COTS, or even hybrids of U.S. and existing foreign systems. Leverage the potential Bigelow market. This should be done even if Ares 1/Orion have to be delayed a bit, since it's a crucial step to avoid the disaster scenario where Ares 1/Orion are used to send crew to the ISS and the lunar plan is cancelled.

Mike is stuck dealing with the results of decisions made prior to him becoming the Administrator. He is the brighest light at the helm in many years. I wish him well. And quit bringing up old Marsha stories - this is childish and boring.

I'm a young college student, and would like to know who should be administrator, what decisions they should make, and how they should act. This whole space exploration society, which is becoming more and more apparent to me as I enter the professional world, is that everyone just likes to bitch.

So, I am probably wrong. But, I would like to have someone tell me what an administrator should be. Growing up, I didn't think it should be Mr. O'Keefe, who just ran the business side of things. I wanted someone that wanted to leave LEO and actually had a vision. Now, I have that person, although he still must deal with the political climate right now and sculpt the vision with that -- and public perception -- in mind.

Please, SOMEONE, tell me what we want in an administrator so EVERYONE can stop bitching.

"Growing up, I didn’t think it should be Mr. O’Keefe, who just ran the business side of things. I wanted someone that wanted to leave LEO and actually had a vision."

That was O'Keefe. He's responsible for the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), the first time NASA has had sustainable political direction to get human space flight out of LEO since the Apollo era.

Griffin came on board a year or so after O'Keefe got the VSE through the White House and Congress.

"Please, SOMEONE, tell me what we want in an administrator so EVERYONE can stop bitching."

NASA's best Administrator was arguably Jim Webb from the Apollo era. Like O'Keefe, Webb was not an engineer or scientist, but a politician, budget expert, and high-level bureaucrat.

NASA has tons of bright technical experts. Putting one more technical expert in the Administrator's chair adds little to the agency.

What NASA needs in an Administrator is someone who can work the politics, budget, direction, and organization that are so critical to supporting what the rest of the agency does, and who respects and follows the advice of his/her technical experts.

Griffin is _not_ that Administrator.

I understand what you are saying. Ideally, wouldn't the administrator be someone who is both qualified as an engineer and as a manager? One person comes to mind, if that's the case, and that was Von Braun. We need more people like him, but if he were in place today, he wouldn't get very far at all because people would naysay. There's so much negativity in the space exploration society, it's unbelievable. Everyone pushes their own agendas, and no one seems to agree on a single goal.

What about Robert Zubrin and his plans for Mars exploration? Do people agree with that? Well, yes and no. Well, everyone can't have their own way. At some point, we have to agree to go in one direction and have everyone backing that direction! Maybe you don't agree with that direction, but you have to agree that it's a positive step forward and we need to back it! Everyone can't have their own way! We agree that NASA's best days were the Apollo days, correct? That's when NASA did space exploration. Now they do so many other things.....spread way too thin. We need simple, straightforward goals that everyone can agree on, not extravagant, complex plans that try and make everyone happy but leave everyone furious.

Keith- your continuous jabs are tiresome. It is one thing to sit there and constantly critize (what you do) and another thing to try to actually accomplish something meaningful (what Mike Griffin and many others at NASA are doing). Teddy Roosevelt had a great quote about this- personally, I would much rather be counted in the second group.

As far as taking shots at Marsha Ivins, that's just petty. She did a nice write-up in Time magazine for a list of important people. If you really care about the space program you would back off of your paparazzi reporting and move on with discussing meaningful space issues.

If anyone else thinks they have a better plan to operate and construct a space station, terminate the shuttle program, build a shuttle replacement, build an infrastructure to go back to the moon, run a meaningful robotic space and earth science program, conduct aerospace research, deal with Congressional earmarks that have ballooned over the past decade, all within a budget that has been flat or worse for over 20 years, more power to them. But as best that I can tell Mike Griffin is doing a pretty good job. Let's back off the constant infighting and get behind him.

Once upon a time, NASA's astronauts were the hero celebrities splashed across the covers of Life and Time, while NASA's administrators, managers, and bureaucrats quietly supported them from the shadows. (Von Braun being the exception that proved the rule.)

Now the astronauts are relegated to the bylines in the Time articles they write about the NASA Administrator.

What is wrong with this picture?

Has our human space flight program really become so boring that administration is now its most exciting element?

And has Griffin's ego really swollen to the point that he likes to overshadow the astronauts?

Very troubling...

And I quote: I’m a young college student, and would like to know who should be administrator, what decisions they should make, and how they should act. This whole space exploration society, which is becoming more and more apparent to me as I enter the professional world, is that everyone just likes to bitch.

So, I am probably wrong. But, I would like to have someone tell me what an administrator should be. Growing up, I didn’t think it should be Mr. O’Keefe, who just ran the business side of things. I wanted someone that wanted to leave LEO and actually had a vision. Now, I have that person, although he still must deal with the political climate right now and sculpt the vision with that — and public perception — in mind.

Please, SOMEONE, tell me what we want in an administrator so EVERYONE can stop bitching

You really need to think about a different career path.

Yes, it would be nice to have an Administrator that is talented both as a politician and as an engineer. But that isn't who brought us to the dance, so we're stuck and might as well enjoy ourselves.

ESAS was well on its way when Griffin came on board--how soon we forget Adm. Steidle.

The key thing about the Space advocacy community is that it will love its new-born but shortly thereafter will eat them because they don't do what we think they should do. Case in point, Mike Griffin tells the New Space community to jump in a lake if they think they can tap into NASA VSE funding, so the New Space, or alt.space, folks feel scorned and hate him. But the only thing New Space has done is make the burn rate without ROI of Internet start-up's look reasonable.

The Space advocacy community will never be happy with a NASA Administrator. If they knew Webb's history, the politics he did inside of NASA...for example, Webb booted out Brainerd Holmes in '63, just after Time had him on their cover as the man making Apollo work. After Holmes' dismissal, the NYTimes ran a headline saying in effect all was lost in the Space race since Holmes was gone. There are other examples about Webb that would make those within the community queasy too. Yet, today, we (rightly) hold Webb up as an example of what an Administrator should be.

If Ares I and V are successful, Griffin will be held up too, however hard that might be to believe today.

"Case in point, Mike Griffin tells the New Space community to jump in a lake if they think they can tap into NASA VSE funding, so the New Space, or alt.space, folks feel scorned and hate him."

Actually, from what I've seen, "newspace" has largely ignored Constellation, with the exception of the COTS program, where Space-X plays.

Most of the detailed criticism appears to come from insiders who are aware of how bad things are.

"But the only thing New Space has done is make the burn rate without ROI of Internet start-up’s look reasonable."

Space-X claims to be cash flow positive. I imagine the dollar amounts invested all the other launch start-ups combined wouldn't add up to the dollars invested in one average internet start-up. The launch business is an incredibly small industry.

Spaceman Stiff:

Why?

When Griffin came in, there was a hue and cry when he made it clear that not one penny of VSE funding would go to New Space. Keith's own commentaries about Griffin's unwillingness to share the love were a good example of how New Space felt that the nation should turn to its (largely untested) talent to get back into Space after the Shuttle program is ended.

Sites like SpacePolitics are viper's den of regular slams about how all is lost on Constellation because Griffin is so (pick your negatively connoted adjective here) while his critics are so smart, which is why they, not he, should run NASA. Rand Simberg, who goes onto Space Politics frequently and is part of the New Space movement, is even harsher on his blog but whose knowledge is not based on up-to-date info--Rand retired from Rockewell in 1993. Other NASA critics claim that they are in the know and that their criticism is based on insider info. I've been an insider too and a lot of what I heard inside JPL ended up being patently wrong. If there's one thing I've learned as an investor and oilman , and engineer, when someone deep in the sausage factory, engineers and programmers especially, tells you everything is going to hell, take that with a very large does of salt. My NASA friends at JSC tell me all is not well, but then it's never well on a project with this sort of risk.

I've run a start-up where I was one of the angel investors and one where I wasn't. With Elon being the mother-of-all angel investors in SpaceX, one would have to see how his investment was classified. But RotorRocket, Kistler, Space Plane, just to name a few, burned through investor cash with nothing to show.

ESAS was well on its way when Griffin came on board–how soon we forget Adm. Steidle.

ESAS in its present form has ZERO Steidle legacy. The first thing Griffin did was throw out everything Steidle did, and then, for all practical purposes, FIRED Steidle.

My NASA friends at JSC tell me all is not well, but then it’s never well on a project with this sort of risk.

Why should there be that level of risk, this is Apollo II. We've been flying large rocket to space for over 50 years now, and we've been to the moon 8 times.

This is Griffins baby, he gets all the blame. You'll just have to trust me that there is a lot to blame here.

"When Griffin came in, there was a hue and cry when he made it clear that not one penny of VSE funding would go to New Space."

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Griffin allocated $500 million of VSE funding to COTS. And Griffin gave multiple speeches about applying commercial practices to launch system and flight procurement and promising more spending in this area. See his 6/21/05 remarks to the Space Transportation Associations at http://www.nasa.gov/news/speeches/admin/mg_speech_collection_archive_5.html

"Sites like SpacePolitics are viper’s den of regular slams about how all is lost on Constellation because Griffin is so (pick your negatively connoted adjective here) while his critics are so smart, which is why they, not he, should run NASA."

I don't know if you're the same person, but one Jim Hillhouse got his arse handed to him by posters at spacepolitics.com who presented tons and tons of current, relevant evidence while Hillhouse had nothing but an old NASA presentation that was over a year out of date.

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2008/04/29/nelson-nasa-doesnt-want-to-stir-up-the-people-at-ksc/#comments

Still stinging from that whipping, are we?

"Rand retired from Rockewell in 1993"

Rand still does aerospace engineering consulting for a number of firms.

"But RotorRocket, Kistler, Space Plane,"

It was Rotary Rocket, not "RotorRocket".

And there is/was no company called "Space Plane".

You clearly have no friggin idea what you're talking about. On multiple levels.

Stick to the oil business.

Yes, Spaceman Spiff is right. There are people with all kinds of points of view in the space field, some of them very ardent about expressing them. If that bothers you Phil, you ought to think about a different field . . .

I suspect neither Griffin nor the VSE will survive the coming change of president. From me perspective, good riddance to both.

It's good to have dissenting viewpoints. It's just bad when they are so overwhelming, nothing good every happens. I totally understand the need -- and positive aspects -- of constructive criticism; it just seems that it's way more prevalent in this field than any other. But I guess that's because people are so passionate in this field.

I mean, if we can't somehow agree on the right path for NASA/our space exploration goals, how do we expect the general public to get behind us?

Your point Phil is a very insightful one and goes to the central problem the Space advocacy community has of being "off-message" from "Kill it because it's not 'right'!" to "Love it because it's all we have!", the community has only contributed to the problem of confusing the general public, and by extension their representatives, about getting behind (an albeit imperfect) Space program and the funding to complete that program, thus helping the enemies of the Space program to kill it. This is the reason Mike Griffin raised the subject of self-censoring by the Space community of those voices that do not support VSE or try to distract it with alternatives.

We need a consistent message presented to the public of publicly supporting the manned Space program as it is presently constituted while behind the scenes talking with NASA about our concerns and any recommendations to solve those concerns we might have. Yes, the community is very passionate. But we are also smart enough to channel our passion so that it is (hopefully) constructive to achieving the goals we all have, of exploring Space.

Joe, I, not AS or Me, was the one referencing the two GAO reports (GAO-08-51 and GAO-08-186T) along with AvWeek articles to rebut their Dooms Day predictions about the Ares and J-2X programs.

Joe Blow must have problems, just as AnonymousSpace and Me did on SpacePolitics, in his ability to read, to whit the following. AS and Me kept ranting that the J-2X program was years behind schedule and would keep Ares I from lifting off til 2017. As evidence, they cited two GAO reports, GAO-08-51 and GAO-08-186T.

It turns out that, rather than criticizing NASA, both reports indicated that NASA was doing a fair job of acknowledging, and staying on top of, the risks of the various technologies needed to get Ares I up, including the J-2X, including incorporating industry-standard knowledge based risk mitigation and by accounting early on in the schedule for programmatic slips [GAO-08-51, p.9]. NASA was further complimented in both reports for taking steps to bring commonality to both Ares I and V by, as an example doing the work early on the 5-segment RSRB stack.

It was AS's opinion that if the GAO said there was risk, then what it really meant was that the risk was imminent, that the slip was 5-years had already occured, and that we shouldn't expect Ares I to lift off until 2017. He would not indicate who he was, just as with Mr. Blow,

Go ahead Blow and read the two reports--I know you haven't--and please tell me where I'm wrong.

I'll tell you something about hiring a consultant--they are told what they need to know to do their job and no more. Why? Run your own company and you'll know. Until you reach very high up, you don't get the whole picture. Commonly, consultants only see the problems because that's what they are hired to fix; many other things might be going well.

Yes, today, I'm in the oil business. But I retired from the oil business in 1993 to be a part of, and eventually run, a software startup and then pursue a BSE in aerospace engineering. I was good enough at what I did to move on to an MSE in Mission Planning and Orbital Mechanics from U.Texas, 2000 and worked for JPL as a programmer. I eventually left the aerospace world because I needed to return to the oil and gas company I had once run. But I do more than that. I'm also the lead programmer of a startup writing a mission planning application for the Mac and iPhone platforms.

Roto Rocket, Rotary Rocket...just like an engineer to miss the forest for the trees, who cares what the name was, the thing lost money and went out of business. Right? I even attended their auction in...Mojave, I think. And Kistler looses its $227M sweet-heart contract with NASA, one with no other bidders, was rescinded by NASA, and after years of cash burn then merges with RocketPlane, which itself was re-org'd in 2001 from OK-based Pioneer RocketPlane, under the guise that two losers can make a winner. Tell me Blow, how many millions did Kistler and RocketPlane go through to produce zip? How does their balance sheet look today? Launch is imminent, I'm sure. What a waste.

To clarify, AnonymousSpace, in the link Joe Blow referenced, stated that the GAO reports indicated that risk was highly likely that there would be a slip of two years in the J-2X program, meaning that the IOC of the Ares I would slip to 2017 from 2015. However, in my reading of the GAO reports (GAO-08-51 and GAO-08-186T), I did not get the feeling that those who wrote those reports felt that the likelihood of a 2-year slip in the J-2X program was high. AnonymousSpace indicated that he was in a position to know otherwise. However, unless he is,

a) pretty high up in the J-2X program (Program manager, deputy, assistant, however Rocketdyne or NASA have structured the first two layers of management.)
b) a consultant for someone pretty high up in the J-2X program
c) was on the GAO committee for either GAO report
d) was a consultant to the GAO or the committees for either or both reports

then the likelihood of AS being in a position of knowledge of the full status of the J-2X project superior to that of the GAO was unlikely. Further, feedback I received the one person I know at NASA who would know about the status of the J-2X program was that things were moving along, though with the usual, and expected, hiccups.

I want to be clear about something concerning AnonymousSpace--he clearly has more time in propulsion than I. I respect his time and experience. However, having also been both on the ground and not, having heard the doom & gloom about projects that ended up being far from as late as expected, I also know that in some cases such pessimism is not justified. He says things are bad. The GAO says there is only a chance they will go bad and says nothing of existing slips, at least through March 2008.

GAO reports are not written to be understood by the cognesceti. Rather, they are written to inform lay people the status of whatever the GAO has reviewed. And having seen how critical of NASA the GAO can be, if a GAO report reads like GAO-08-51 (October 2007) or GAO-08-186T (April 2008), that being reports that do not sound the klaxon and do not state that program time budget slips have occurred, then I have to assume that the report has no hidden message to the contrary that all is proceeding as reported. Based on what I've read on Keith's postings, the GAO does not pull its punches when reporting on NASA.

As for Joe Blow, I would very much like him to come forward with his real name, as I have, and state his credentials and reasons for thinking that the above conclusions are misreadings of the information out there. Or, and I have to wonder about this, is he the sort of person afraid to say who he is because he knows his arguments will not stand the light of day. As Hans Mark once told me, "It's easy to be brave, from a safe distance."

As for Joe Blow, I would very much like him to come forward with his real name, as I have, and state his credentials

This is NASAWatch, you don't need credentials here. If you are an American citizen, it's your space agency. You own it. Nasa and its administration is supposed to represent you and your national interests, not the interests of Lockheed or ATK.

You support NASA, as evidenced by your numerous uninformed postings here and elsewhere. Ares I (the Stick) represents a RADICAL departure from established rocket science, a legacy established now over a half a century. It was incumbent upon Michael Griffin and ATK to demonstrate convincingly that such a radical departure from consensus rocket science and engineering was justified before embarking on a $20 billion dollar research and development program, considering the existence of several conventional liquid fuel rockets available for immediate application to the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), just as it is incumbent upon you now to justify the continued pursuit of such a radical design, especially now that it is a demonstrable scientific, engineering and financial failure.

I posit (along with many others knowledgeable in the field of rocketry) that you and Michael Griffin have failed spectacularly in a radical rocket design experiment, and that your continued pursuit of this failed launch vehicle paradigm is severely crippling the ability of NASA and the United States to respond to rapidly developing opportunities in the field of space science and engineering.

The experiment was a failure. You misunderstand our goal, which is to move beyond a failed experiment, so that the Vision and the Goals of our United States space agency can proceed at the quickest possible pace, within the restrictions imposed by the funds which are available.

Outsider, OK, nice ad-hominem attack. Let's start from the beginning. Your bud Joe blasted me here. I shot back and, I think, did a fair job of making my case as to why I believed his conclusions were misguided.

True enough, Ares I is a big departure from past manned launchers. We've never stuck a crewed vehicle on a solid rocket motor. The Stick gives me the willies, plain and simple, and I really don't like the idea from an intuitive point of view. But I don't have a ready-made alternative. Do you? And please, not the EELV approach--that probably has about as much, maybe more, risk of pushing deadlines back as the track we're going down now. So, what am I left with? I'm not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I have to trust that the engineers at MSFC and the contractors working on Ares I are not trying to screw up our manned program but are motivated to successfully reach their goal and see their bird fly.

Yes, I do support NASA, and proudly so. That doesn't mean I can't be critical of NASA. I just don't understand the perverse logic that guides Space supporters to criticize NASA in print and speech. Look at what the DIRECT folks have done, esp. in DIRECT v2. Want to change what NASA is doing, vis-a-vis The Stick? The D2 folks are showing us how. Whether D2 will or will not have an impact, the difference is, this group is taking an engineering approach to providing an alternative rather than just complaining. If you, AnonymousSpace, and Joe want to make an impact on changing NASA's direction on Ares I, then join the D2 team.

Disclaimer--I am not associated with the D2 team though I do think the work they are doing is outstanding.

Jim Hillhouse - Time to chill out. You have totally taken over this thread and turned it into a one man off-topic arm waving session - and you are waging a battle over some discussion on another website.

...taking deep breath...OK. Sorry Keith.

Speaking of potential biases, this sentence makes me think they probably should have mentioned the author's job:

***
With four simple words—"Just call me Mike"—he began restructuring NASA into the kind of openly communicative and inspired organization it once was.
***

It strikes me how differently two people can see someone's accomplishments. From my point of view (whether right or wrong), the first negative things that come to mind about Dr. Griffin's time so far as NASA Administrator are selecting the ESAS architecture that doesn't address the main VSE goals of security, economics, and science (except, if we're very lucky, after 2020), not fighting for funding Centennial Challenges, and violating the "not one thin dime" pledge not to raid the Earth and Space Science budget. The first positive things that come to mind are a successful return to Shuttle flight and ISS construction (crossing fingers), opening the door for more commercial services in the non-lunar parts of NASA (Zero-G flights, COTS, ISS water system, etc), and, recently, more emphasis on suborbital science, Earth monitoring and lunar robotics.

None of this is even mentioned in the article. I'm not sure if this reflects bad prioritization on my part, Marsha's, or both.