NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is coming to the UK on the 14^th December to address the Royal Astronomical Society. The NASA boss will be speaking to the society at their monthly meeting in the recently refurbished Burlington House, Piccadilly, London.

 

Dr Griffin is a key supporter of plans to return mankind to the face of the Moon and to the red planet, Mars. Dr Griffin is also the number one advocate of space exploration. He once said that "for me the single overarching goal of human space flight is the human settlement of the solar system, and eventually beyond. I can think of no lesser purpose sufficient to justify the difficulty of the enterprise, and no greater purpose is possible."

 

He is also credited as the savior of the Hubble Space Telescope and therefore a champion of science. When the HST was due to be de-orbited and no safe shuttle mission could be mounted to repair it, it was Dr Griffin who pushed for the study that said that it could be fixed safely.

 

Another interesting decision in Dr Griffin's career has been the replacement of the space shuttle program with an Apollo like space capsule called the Orion. With its new launchers, the Ares 1 and Ares 5, the Orion will take mankind back to the moon.

 

Dr Griffin has occasionally made controversial statements such as stating that the Shuttle and International Space Station programs were a mistake and when referring to global warming, said that he was “not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with”.

 

His visit to the UK will offer a fantastic opportunity to promote space within the UK by highlighting where Anglo-American space cooperation has in the past and will in the future benefit science, industry and our daily lives.