Marshall Director says shuttle must retire by 2010, Huntsville Times

“Keeping the space shuttle program going past its planned retirement date of 2010 is a “bad idea” and would rob development money from its replacement, the Ares I rockets now being developed at Marshall Space Flight Center, said Marshall Director Dave King this morning.”

Internal NASA email from NASA Administrator Griffin regarding Space Shuttle, ISS, Russia, Ares, Orion, OSTP, OMB and Budgetary Issues

“In a rational world, we would have been allowed to pick a Shuttle retirement date to be consistent with Ares/Orion availability, we would have been asked to deploy Ares/Orion as early as possible (rather than “not later than 2014″) and we would have been provided the necessary budget to make it so. I realize that no one on this distribution disagrees with me on this point, I’m just saying it again, that’s all.”

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻