Senate confirms NASA nominee

The Senate late Wednesday confirmed the nomination of Michael D. Griffin as NASA's 11th administrator.

The new leader takes office just four weeks ahead of the space shuttle's scheduled return to flight.

In his confirmation hearing Tuesday, Griffin told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that his first priority after taking office will be to assess the agency's readiness to launch the shuttle Discovery on May 15. It will be the first space shuttle mission since the February 2003 Columbia disaster.

He also said he planned to spend part of his first day on the job looking into the agency's continuing financial management woes.

The Government Accountability Office reported April 8 (GAO-05-492R) that auditor Ernst and Young disclaimed an opinion on NASA's 2004 financial statements because of "pervasive errors" and "data integrity issues." Griffin told senators it appears to him that the agency's chief financial officer, Gwendolyn Sykes, "has not received all the resources necessary to accomplish her job."

In a nationwide question-and-answer session with NASA employees Thursday, Griffin asked them to call him by his first name. He also sought to reassure them that science and aeronautics will remain core missions at NASA, although the agency's recovery from the Columbia tragedy will be his first priority for now.

"All other commitments will flow around what I have to do in order to support the return to flight decision," Griffin said.

NASA has proposed cutting some science and aeronautics programs that do not complement its new exploration goals, which include returning astronauts to the moon and sending them to Mars. Griffin argued that the agency should be able to carry out more than one mission at a time. "Budget cuts need to be made with a scalpel and not a meat ax," he said.

Asked what he believes he brings to NASA, Griffin identified his chief asset as "having been other places and done other things…that didn't have a NASA business card attached to them." He said he will drive NASA to take the best possible advantage of competition and commercial partnerships. Griffin, a veteran aerospace engineer whose federal service includes two stints at NASA, most recently headed the space department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Before taking the post at Johns Hopkins in April 2004, he was president and chief operating officer of In-Q-Tel Inc., a technology venture capital firm funded by the CIA. He also has held several positions at Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.

Earlier in his career, Griffin served as deputy director for technology in the Pentagon's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. He was an architect of U.S. space exploration policy during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.