Griffin Testifies Before Congress

Griffin to Testify on Status of NASA programs

House Science Committee: Status of NASA’s Programs – Hearing Charter

“If NASA does not receive a significant increase in its projected budgets over the next five years, it will either have to drop its plans to accelerate the development of a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) or it will have to significantly cut science and/or aeronautics. NASA has already proposed significant cuts in some areas of its exploration budget and in Space Station research to accelerate development of the CEV.”

Editor’s note: At the start of his opening statement, Rep. Bart Gordon complained that NASA did not provide Griffin’s prepared testimony until 4 pm yesterday – for a 10 AM hearing today. Gordon warned that if this happens again that he will have to recommend that the practice be followed as it was under Rep. Sensenbrenner – and cancel the hearing.

Editor’s note: Rep. Boehlert opened his questions with the movie line “show me the money”.

Griffin told Rep. Gordon that the Hubble Servicing Mission is “my highest priority for the shuttle”. When asked what his projected budget shortfall was between now and FY 2010, Griffin said “we are several billion dollars short in the shuttle operations line”. When pushed by Gordon for a specific number – perhaps “in the 3-6” billion dollar range Griffin said that it was in the “3-5” billion dollar range. Later Griffin said that NASA will be “subsidizing” to the tune of “a half a billion dollars” a commercial resupply effort for the ISS. Last week in hearings, NASA’s CFO said that she would not sign off on NASA’s annual fiscal report if held to the same standard as the private sector is. When asked to comment on this, Griffin really had no answer – other than to say “I hope that by ’08 we will be in good shape”.

Griffin said that when he speaks of ‘science” he refers to things done in the Science Mission Directorate. Life science was not included in that grouping of “science” – and Griffin said that he felt that doing life science research now “was putting the cart before the horse.”