Griffin on Loss of U.S. Space Leadership

I am puzzled by Griffin's House committee statement of 2/16/06.

In it ("http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=19658")

He says:

"There are several reasons not to delay the CEV further. First and
foremost is increased risk to the Vision due to an extended gap
in our Nation's ability to launch humans into space. ... A longer
gap in U.S. human spaceflight capabilities will increase risk and
overall costs and lead to even more delays. In addition, the U.S.
may risk a perceived, if not a real, loss of leadership in space
exploration if we are unable to launch our astronauts into space
for an extended period when other nations are establishing or
building on their own abilities to do so."

During the same presentation, Griffin said:

"NASA needed to take budgeted funds from the Science and
Exploration budget projections for FY 2007-11 in order to ensure
that enough funds were available to the Space Shuttle and the
ISS. Thus, NASA cannot afford the costs of starting some new
space science missions, like a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa,
or the nextgeneration space astrophysics missions beyond the
James Webb Space Telescope, at this time."

In my opinion, the only "leadership" that the U.S. currently
provides in space is in the unmanned science and exploration
efforts that Griffin is proposing to gut. The U.S. long ago lost
its leadership position in manned spaceflight to Russia, which
for the past several years has provided the only seat-rides to
orbit. The International Space Station itself is built around a
Russian core.

It seems to me that Griffin's plans will simply eliminate U.S.
unmanned space science leadership for the return of only
getting NASA back on a par with the Russians in manned
flight.

A better approach, IMO, would have been to shut shuttle
down three years ago. A slightly less better approach
might be to shut it down now.

- Ed Kyle