NASA Chief Blasts Advisors
(ScienceNOW Daily News, 22 August 2006)

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin yesterday read the riot act to the outside scientists who advise him, accusing them of thinking more of themselves and their research than of the agency’s mission. Griffin’s harsh comments come on the heels of the resignation of three distinguished scientists from the NASA Advisory Council (NAC), two of whom have questioned Griffin’s plan to dramatically scale back a host of science projects (Science, 12 May, p. 824). “The scientific community … expects to have far too large a role in prescribing what work NASA should do,” Griffin wrote council members in a blistering 21 August message. “By ‘effectiveness,’ what the scientific community really means is ‘the extent to which we are able to get NASA to do what we want to do.”