NASA chief justifies cuts during session at USU

If educators want to negotiate with firms to get students' experiments into space, he added, "I wish you well. But it is not my job to be the broker for those launches."

Griffin added that he did not say and does not believe that a student has to work for a company or lab or the government in order to be enthusiastic about space.

"I was enthusiastic about space when I was 5 years old," he said.

The first question took aim at NASA's deep cuts in science funding. A member of the audience asked Griffin how he reconciles the budget pressures.

"It's a difficult thing to reconcile because we are doing fewer missions of any kind than I would like, and we're doing fewer small missions than I would like, if I lived in a well-ordered world," the administrator replied.

"But I don't. I live in a NASA world that is defined by the loss of Columbia," he said.

Columbia is the space shuttle that blew up on re-entry in February 2003, killing all seven astronauts.

NASA's expenses to get the shuttle fleet safe to fly again have amounted to $2.7 billion the last he checked. Meanwhile, the agency did not get extra funding for that process.

Also, the U.S. government is committed to finishing the International Space Station, a project he agrees with.

"And we shall do so," Griffin said. "It's half done," and it's a big expense. "I live in a world where about 15 minutes after I walked in the door the James Webb Space Telescope community presented with me with . . . an underfunding of about $1.5 billion." The National Academy of Science ranked the orbiting telescope on its highest priority list for astronomy, he said.

"I respect the priority and we will complete the James Webb, but the billion and a half comes from somewhere. So that's the world I live in."

Speaking of President Bush's decision to replace the space shuttle with the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle as soon as possible after the space station is finished, Griffin said that is a "direction that I support in the strongest possible terms."

It will not happen as quickly as he and many others would like, "but it will be done by 2014," he pledged.

Griffin admitted he does not have a good answer for these difficulties.

"We gotta do these things in the next few years, and let's just all hang in there and do the best we can," he said.

The background to Moore's questions is that earlier, a USU student asked about NASA funding for student projects.

"I doubt if there is any," Griffin said. "It simply is not among the top priorities that I have at NASA to fund student experiments. As students you need to learn science and engineering and those disciplines, and then you need to get out among companies or laboratories =85 and continue to learn your trade."

That's how to grow in the space business, he said. "It is nice when we can afford to do student experiments in a context of a university. But right now, as strapped for cash as we are, I'm simply not sure that's a luxury we can afford."

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