Wants Shuttle Replacement In Five Years

NASA's new administrator, Michael Griffin, wants to reduce what's becoming known as the "shuttle gap" -- the time between retirement of the current space plane fleet and the construction of a new generation of orbiters.

So late last month, he sent out a memo outlining what he calls an "Exploration Architecture Study." It's his demand that NASA pare down the field of companies hoping to build the next shuttle fleet to just two competitors by the end of July and to pick the finalist by early next year. Griffin, appearing for all the world like a man of action, wants to make sure that when the International Space Station is finished in 2010, American ships will be there to service it.

NASA spokesman Dean Acosta said Griffin is trying to "find a way to close the gap." But in doing so, the new administrator faces some stiff challenges from within his own agency. The man who designed a program for "Moon, Mars and Beyond," Rear Adm. Craig Steidle (USN, Ret.) is fast falling by the wayside in favor of one being developed by a small strategy team Griffin has assembled, a core group of NASA thinkers that has been likened to the group which put together the Apollo program more than four decades ago.

There is friction. Steidle told the Washington Post in a recent telephone interview, he believes NASA needs "no change in the way the program is going to be managed." He also denied talk that Griffin's move-faster approach might prompt his resignation.

"We're on the same path," said Steidle, who is NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems. He told the Post, "If there are rumors out there that we are differing on this, that is not true."

But Steidle's plan moved much more slowly than what Griffin apparently wants. It called for NASA acceptance of two competing proposals in the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) program by August. The two companies would stage an unmanned launch competition by 2008 and would supposedly have the CEV online and ready to go by 2014.

In the meantime, between 2010 and 2014, Russia's Soyuz program would be the only way to and from the ISS. America would, for that four-year interval be much as it is right now -- sidelined in the business of exploring space.

"We can't allow that kind of hiatus," said Senate science and space subcommittee Chairman Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) on Capitol Hill recently. She, too, was quoted by the Post. "It is a national security threat to our country, and I intend to pursue everything I can to shorten that time frame."

During his confirmation hearings earlier this year, Griffin agreed, saying America needs to remain the dominant influence in space exploration.

Skeptics point to the money it will take to speed up production of a new space shuttle before 2014. "If you want to do it faster," one source told the Post, "generally you're going to have to throw more money at it."

FMI: www.nasa.gov