John Grunsfeld, NASA’s new associate administrator for science, says he will look to leverage capabilities elsewhere in the agency in order to get the most of out the directorate’s budget, citing as an example the potential use of the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket for large science missions, Space Politics reported Jan. 12.
Grunsfeld, speaking at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Texas, acknowledged that NASA’s science programs are facing a “constrained” budget environment but warned against battles in the science community or between the science and human spaceflight directorates. “We are only as strong as our whole, and if we pit community against community, everybody loses,” he said.
Grunsfeld was upbeat about the “replan” of the James Webb Space Telescope in the wake of budget overruns and schedule delays. “We’ve got a really good plan going forward,” he said. “I really do feel that we have a good handle on the programmatics and the science system engineering.”
