…with Mike Griffin.
Not a lot new here for people who have been following it. And I would have a lot bolder vision for a “perfect world” than simply enough money to fly Shuttle while developing the Paintshaker. And he seems to be ignoring the issue that they share facilities and that mods have to occur (unless he was asking for enough money for new facilities for the new launcher).
And this is a useful point:
Q: When I tell non space people about the gap, the response is almost universally “you’re kidding.” Why is that?
Griffin: The ‘you’re kidding’ part and the lack of notice, for several years it was something fairly far off in the future. The actual circumstance doesn’t even occur in the next president’s administration unless that president gets two terms. It certainly wasn’t occurring in this president’s administration and it doesn’t occur in any of the next couple of Congresses, right? Nobody around today was certain to be on scene when the actual consequence occurs. Moreover, I don’t think anybody reading about it in the papers … thought really that it was going to be allowed to come to pass.
A lot of people argue that we need governments to fund things like this because private industry is too short sighted.
Give me a break.