Jeff has been involved in aerospace journalism since the mid 1990s. Prior to joining Aviation Week, Jeff served as managing editor of Launchspace magazine and the International Space Industry Report. He has been the editor and chief of Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report since 2007 and has been a regular contributor to Aviation Week magazine. He received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
During a frank discussion with the National Academies' Space Science Board in Washington May 2, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin defended his decision to slow science programs at the agency to address short-term budget needs in human spaceflight. NASA's FY '07 budget proposes to reduce science programs at NASA by $3.1 billion through FY '10 as compared to projections in the FY '06 budget to fund a shortfall in the space shuttle budget and complete construction of the International Space Station (ISS).
Jefferson Morris and Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
U.S. industry risks killing the goose that lays golden eggs by billing too much for space goods and services, threatening the NASA space programs that give it new business and the technology for international competition, says Administrator Michael Griffin. In a strongly worded speech to an "Inside Aerospace" symposium organized by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Space Foundation, Griffin says: "If we want to see the space enterprise survive, it can't continue to cost what it does for what it produces.
NASA has decided to fly shuttle Discovery on its next mission without modifying the ice/frost ramp on the shuttle's external tank, which engineers have targeted as the next area of concern for foam debris shedding. The ice/frost ramps are ice-preventing buildups of foam that cover metal brackets connecting pressurization lines to the external tank. There are 34 ice/frost ramps on the tank - 12 on the liquid oxygen tank, 16 on the liquid hydrogen tank, and six on the inter-tank area.
