Griffin, Michael

Michael Griffin, in full Michael Douglas Griffin, (born November 1, 1949, Aberdeen, Maryland, U.S.), American aerospace engineer who was the 11th administrator (2005–09) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

As an undergraduate, Griffin attended Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and received a bachelor’s degree (1971) in physics. He earned a doctorate in aerospace engineering (1977) from the University of Maryland as well as five master’s degrees—in aerospace science (1974; Catholic University of America), electrical engineering (1979; University of Southern California), applied physics (1983; Johns Hopkins University), business administration (1990; Loyola College, Baltimore), and civil engineering (1998; George Washington University).

Early in his career Griffin served as deputy for technology of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, a military missile defense program. In the late 1980s he joined NASA and was chief engineer and associate administrator for exploration. He left NASA in the early 1990s and held several executive posts in aerospace companies, including Orbital Sciences Corp. Before rejoining NASA, he served as head of the space department at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University. Griffin was a director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a recipient of many honours, including the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal (1994).

Griffin was sworn in as NASA’s new administrator on April 14, 2005, just two years after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its crew in February 2003. Nevertheless, he overruled NASA’s top safety officer and chief engineer and directed that the July 2006 launch of the space shuttle Discovery take place as planned, despite lingering worries that the insulating foam on the shuttle’s external fuel tank would break off and damage the shuttle during liftoff, as it had on Columbia. Griffin, obviously pleased when Discovery touched down safely after a nearly perfect 13-day mission, still cautioned, “We’ve got 16 flights to go to assemble the space station and hopefully do a Hubble [Space Telescope] repair.”

Griffin was an experienced leader in the field of aerospace and was widely perceived as someone well qualified for the job of guiding NASA as it turned in a new direction. Besides resuming space shuttle flight, NASA was dealing with a sweeping new program for space exploration, called Constellation, presented in 2004 by U.S. Pres. George W. Bush. Constellation called for sending astronauts back to the Moon by 2020 with the goal of later exploring Mars and other parts of the solar system. In addition, the program called for retiring the U.S. space shuttle fleet once the International Space Station was completed, around 2010.

Although Griffin’s immediate priority was to get the space shuttle flying again, he saw his principal task to be that of reengaging NASA with the endeavour of sending humans to explore space beyond low Earth orbit, and he envisioned the eventual establishment of human settlements in other parts of the solar system. In September 2005 Griffin described the plans that NASA was drawing up for taking astronauts back to the Moon and on to Mars. The plans involved the development by 2014 of a crew vehicle for up to six people and of two types of launch vehicles that would make use of space shuttle components. By early 2006, when Griffin presented NASA’s new budget, it had become apparent that the costs of fixing the space shuttle and developing the new spacecraft were leading to unpopular cuts in a number of other NASA programs, including many science missions. Griffin resigned as NASA administrator in January 2009. He was then appointed professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

In 2012 Griffin became chairman and CEO of the Schafer Corporation, a technology firm involved in aerospace and national security. Six years later he returned to government, becoming undersecretary of defense for research and engineering at the U.S. Department of Defense. He stepped down from that post in 2020.