Rocket scientist tapped as next NASA chief

By Brian Berger

Space News staff writer

updated 8:50 p.m. ET March 11, 2005

WASHINGTON - The White House confirmed Friday that President Bush has nominated Mike Griffin, head of the space department at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, to be the next NASA administrator.

Griffin, a rocket scientist with an M.B.A., is a veteran aerospace executive who has held a variety of senior-level positions at the Pentagon, at NASA and in industry. Word of Griffin’s nomination was first reported earlier in the day by Space.com's sister publication, Space News.

He is replacing former NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe. who announced his resignation last December, citing personal and financial reasons. O'Keefe took a job as chancellor of Louisiana State University's Baton Rouge campus. He served three years as NASA's chief. At present, veteran shuttle astronaut Frederick Gregory has been acting as interim administrator.

Approval from lawmakers
Griffin’s nomination met with the immediate approval of several lawmakers who would have to work closely with him if he is confirmed by the Senate.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., an influential member of the Senate Appropriations Committee who knows Griffin because of his work at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, said the president made “an outstanding choice.”

In a statement issued Friday afternoon, Mikulski said Griffin “has the right combination of experience in industry, academia and government service. He has a proven record of leadership and a passion for science and exploration. I welcome his nomination.”

House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, whose committee has called on Griffin to testify as an expert witness on NASA issues, also endorsed the president’s choice.

"We are extremely pleased that the president has nominated Mike Griffin to be NASA Administrator,” Boehlert said in a statement. “Dr. Griffin has long been a resource to the Science Committee, both as a public witness and in providing private counsel. He has broad expertise, knows NASA inside and out, and is an imaginative and creative thinker and leader. He is also known for his candor and directness. We look very forward to working with Dr. Griffin at this critical time for NASA."

Varied background
When the first President Bush announced the Space Exploration Initiative in 1989 in an attempt to move NASA out of its low-Earth-orbit rut and on to Mars, Griffin was picked to lead the ill-fated effort, serving as NASA’s chief technologist and associate administrator for exploration. He left the agency in 1993.

During much of the 1990s, Griffin worked in several leadership positions at Orbital Sciences Corp., a Dulles, Va.-based company that builds satellites and rockets.

Before returning to APL in April 2004 to lead the lab’s space work, Griffin was the chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, a private nonprofit enterprise funded by the Central Intelligence Agency to invest in companies developing leading-edge technologies.

During the late 1980s, Griffin worked as the technology deputy for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, an early predecessor to the Missile Defense Agency.

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon “Pete” Worden, who has known Griffin for more than 20 years, said Griffin is an “absolutely superb choice” for NASA administrator.

“This means the administration is serious about a new direction for the program,” Worden said. “He will make the president’s vision a reality.”

A-OK WITH ACTIVISTS Mike Griffin receives endorsements from space activist groups: Space Frontier Foundation: Founder Rick Tumlinson tells MSNBC.com that "of all the potential inside candidates that are out there, he's probably the best. ... This is somebody who can 'get it.'" The National Space Society: Executive director George Whitesides says Griffin is "exactly what NASA needs now." The Planetary Society: President Wes Huntress says Griffin will "add a down-to-earth insistence on logic and realism" to the vision for NASA. Alan Boyle / MSNBC.com

Courtney Stadd, an aerospace management consultant who headed up the NASA transition for Bush and served as NASA’s White House liaison and chief of staff until July 2003, said Griffin has the right mix of technical savvy and management experience to lead NASA. “He brings a really unique and really important set of skills that is exactly what the agency needs at this point in its history,” Stadd said.

Griffin has a doctorate in aerospace engineering and master’s degrees in aerospace science, electrical engineering, applied physics, civil engineering and business administration.

Entrepreneurial experience
Worden said that he believes Griffin will “make maximum use of the true private sector” in implementing the space exploration vision, heading one of the central recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel Bush chartered last year to advise him on turning the exploration goals into reality.

Stadd said some of the smaller, entrepreneurial firms vying for a role in NASA’s new exploration plans ought to be very happy the White House picked Griffin.

“From an entrepreneurial standpoint, he has someone who has actually experienced what it is like to be on the other side of the table dealing with the government,” he said. “We haven’t had that before.”

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