Bush names college physicist new NASA head
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-12 10:03

US President Bush on Friday picked physicist Michael Griffin to lead NASA as it prepares to resume space shuttle flights and tries to meet the White House goal of sending astronauts back to the moon in the decade ahead.

In a photo provided by Johns Hopkins Univeristy physicist Michael D. Griffin is shown. President Bush on Friday, March 11, 2005, picked Griffin to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.[AP]

If confirmed by the Senate, Griffin would become the space agency's 11th administrator.

Members of Congress immediately praised the president's choice, as did John Logsdon, director of George Washington University's space policy institute.

"I've known Mike for a long time and have a great deal of respect for him as a kind of innovative thinker, real enthusiast full of energy," Logsdon said.

"His biggest challenge is convincing Congress that the president's vision should be a national vision, that it's the right way for the program to proceed," Logsdon added.

Sean O'Keefe left NASA last month after three years in the top job to become chancellor of Louisiana State University. Since then, his deputy, former space shuttle commander Frederick Gregory, has been serving as acting administrator.

For the past year, Griffin has headed the space department at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. It is the lab's second-largest department and specializes in projects for both NASA and the military.

Griffin, 55, has a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and five master's degrees, in aerospace science, electrical engineering, applied physics, civil engineering and business administration. His bachelor's degree is in physics.

"President Bush's choice for the new administrator of NASA is the right one," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "Dr. Griffin will propel NASA into the next phase of America's mission in space."

The chairman of the House Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert, R-NY, said Griffin knows NASA "inside and out" and added that he is looking forward to working with him "at this critical time for NASA."

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., also welcomed Griffin, noting, "He has the right combination of experience in industry, academia and government service."

Mikulski is among those pushing for NASA to reinstate one last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Griffin will have the opportunity, if he so chooses, to reverse O'Keefe's decision to cancel any space shuttle visit to Hubble.

O'Keefe had argued it would be too dangerous in the wake of the Columbia accident to send a shuttle to the aging Hubble. He also supported the president's elimination of funding to develop a robotic repairman to send to the prestigious space observatory, in the proposed 2006 budget.

Before taking over the space department at Johns Hopkins, Griffin was president and chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel, a CIA-bankrolled venture-capital organization. Earlier in his career, Griffin worked at NASA as chief engineer and as deputy for technology at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.

His earlier stint at NASA was during the administration of Bush's father.

Last year, Griffin joined other experts to assess the president's new exploration initiative for NASA, which involves retiring the shuttle by 2010, sending astronauts to the moon by 2020, and then mounting human expeditions to Mars and beyond. The report pushed for an even quicker retirement of the shuttle in order to accelerate work on a spaceship that could carry astronauts to the international space station and ultimately to the moon.

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