NASA Spending out of control, by Mike Griffin

An aricle in the New York Times stated: NASA's Black Hole Budgets are out of control. A Cancer is overtaking our space agency: the routine acqueiscence to immense costs increases in projects. Unmistakable new indications of this illness surfaced last month with NASA's decision to go spend at least $100 million more on its poorly-managed, now-over-$2 billion Mars Science Laboratory. This decision to go forward with the project, a robotic rover, was made even though it had tripled in cost since its inception, it is behind schedule, there is no firm estimate of the final cost, and NASA hasn't disclosed the collateral damage inflicted on other programs and activities that depend on NASA's limited science budjet. The decision to pour more money into the Mars Science Laboratory, which is scheduled for launching next year, may ave been like many I witnessed as NASA'a associate adminstrator of science. If so, then NASA's accomplished adminstrator, Mike Griffin, may have calculated that any move to cancel the Mars mission would be rebuffed by members of congress protecting jobs. See remainder of article at NYTimes.com .