Michael Douglas Griffin (born November 1, 1949) is an American physicist and aerospace engineer who served as the under secretary of defense for research and engineering from 2018 to 2020. He previously served as deputy of technology for the Strategic Defense Initiative, and as administrator of NASA from April 13, 2005, to January 20, 2009. As NASA administrator, Griffin oversaw such areas as private spaceflight, future human spaceflight to Mars, and the fate of the Hubble telescope.

Career Griffin's early career began at APL in the 1980s, where he helped design the successful Delta 180 series of missile defense technology satellites for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO). Griffin soon rose to deputy for technology, where he conceived and directed the first space-to-space interception of a ballistic missile in powered flight, and the first space-borne reconnaissance of ballistic missile targets in boost phase and mid-course flight.

In 1991, Griffin was the president and CTO of Orbital Sciences, then a small entrepreneurial space launch company, with contracts from the government to build low-cost rocket launchers for the Brilliant Pebbles program. Despite early launch failures, in September 1992 they successfully sent a test probe to Mars. In 1995, Griffin authored a report published by The Heritage Foundation, "Ending America's Vulnerability to Ballistic Missiles", offering recommendations for advancing the recently cancelled Brilliant Pebbles program. There he advocated for a new proliferated low Earth orbit constellation of sensors and space-based interceptor weapons to defend against ballistic missiles.

In early 2002 he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia, where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The decision to found the company SpaceX was made on the flight home, and Griffin briefly considered serving as chief engineer, but eventually he instead became president and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests.

In 2005, he was appointed NASA administrator, where he pushed for commercial cargo and crew transportation services. After a Government Accountability Office protest, Griffin led a reorganization of a Rocketplane-Kistler contract into a competition called the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Twenty aerospace companies applied to the COTS program, of which two companies, SpaceX and Griffin's Orbital Sciences were eventually selected. On COTS, Griffin later said "I was trying to take my In-Q-Tel experience and apply it, transfer it from the CIA over to NASA.” Reports circulated that the larger aerospace companies that considered competing for COTS were chased off by Griffin. Griffin later said he assigned the award selection decision to Scott “Doc” Horowitz--a friend and fellow Mars Society member--"I explained my intentions and he carried it off."

In December 2008, NASA awarded SpaceX and Orbital Sciences additional contracts with a combined value of $3.5 billion as part of the Commercial Resupply Services program. Elon Musk credited these follow-on contracts for saving his company as it neared bankruptcy.

In February 2018, Griffin was appointed as Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering by Donald Trump. One of his first actions was to create the Space Development Agency. The organization was tasked with procuring a proliferated constellation of low Earth orbit satellites called the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, which later become the backbone for the planned Golden Dome (missile defense system). Commercial contracts for the constellation were given to L3Harris and SpaceX to build Starlink military satellites.

Griffin has encouraged the development of boost-glide hypersonic weapons such as the AGM-183 ARRW. In 2020, he signaled that the United States would be making a major investment in production of hypersonic weaponry at scale. In or before 2023, Griffin joined as an advisor to Castelion, a hypersonics weapons startup founded by former SpaceX executives.

Before his appointment as NASA administrator, Griffin was president-elect of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He is a member of American Astronautical Society and International Academy of Astronautics. Griffin had worked at NASA prior to serving as NASA administrator, including as associate administrator for exploration. When he was nominated as NASA chief, he was head of the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Griffin has been a professor at various universities, teaching courses in spacecraft design, Applied Math, guidance and navigation, compressible flow, computational fluid dynamics, spacecraft attitude control, aerodynamics, and introductory aerospace engineering. He is lead author of more than two dozen technical papers, and is co-author with James R. French of the astronautical engineering textbook, Space Vehicle Design. Griffin is also a general aviation flight Instructor and Pilot, and owner of a small airplane, a Beech Bonanza. In 2004 Griffin was named head of the Space Department at Johns Hopkins University APL.

Education Griffin holds seven academic degrees that he earned throughout his career.

BA degree in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1971;

MSE degree in aerospace science from the Catholic University of America in 1974;

PhD degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland in 1977;

MS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California in 1979;

MS degree in applied physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1983;

MBA degree from Loyola University Maryland in 1990;

MS degree in civil engineering from George Washington University in 1998.Dr. Michael Griffin. UAH Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Retrieved July 26, 2011.NASA – Michael Griffin. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Retrieved July 26, 2011. Griffin was also working toward an MS degree in computer science at Johns Hopkins University before being appointed as NASA chief.

In April 2009, Griffin was named eminent scholar and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Long-term vision for space In 2004 testimony to Congress on the future of human spaceflight, he stated, "For me, the single overarching goal of human space flight is the human settlement of the Solar System, and eventually beyond. I can think of no lesser purpose sufficient to justify the difficulty of the enterprise, and no greater purpose is possible." In his testimony he also advocated heavy-lift launch capabilities, development of space qualified nuclear power systems, in situ resource utilization, and cost-effective medium-size transport to low Earth orbit. Griffin told a Senate subcommittee that the first book he ever received was a book on astronomy and space when he was five years old, and "I was absolutely fascinated by it, and from that time forward, I never considered for myself anything other than being a Scientist or Engineer or Mathematician and involving myself in the space business."

Griffin has collaborated with several space advocacy organizations such as the National Space Society, Mars Society, and the Planetary Society: Griffin and Astronaut Owen K. Garriott were team co-leaders for a study commissioned by the Planetary Society entitled "Extending Human Presence Into the Solar System" in 2004. Griffin cited this study in his first press conference as NASA administrator to answer a question about sending humans to Mars, saying "I would urge you to download that report from the website because I don't have any better thinking to offer you than what I put into that report." Griffin was one of the original signatories of the Mars Society, which is dedicated to human settlement of Mars. Mars Society president Robert Zubrin recounts in his 1996 book, The Case for Mars, that in 1991, after Zubrin presented his ideas about a Mars mission architecture with Griffin, then NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration, Griffin presented these ideas to then NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin. Griffin shared the plenary talk with Elon Musk at the fourth Mars Society gathering in 2001. It was here that Musk announced his plan to grow plants on Mars.

NASA administrator

On March 11, 2005, President George W. Bush announced his intention to nominate Griffin to serve as the 11th Administrator of NASA. He was confirmed by the Senate on April 13, 2005. Griffin was subsequently sworn in by Vice-president Dick Cheney, a rarity for a NASA administrator and signifying the importance NASA held to the Bush Administration. Administration even recalled its former NASA transition Team Director and Chief of Staff, Courtney Stadd,Courtney Stadd to assist Griffin.

On September 28, 2007, Griffin said that NASA aims to put a man on Mars by 2037.

In an interview with The Guardian in July 2008 Griffin stated, in criticism of the Space Shuttle program, that an opportunity to push on to Mars by extending the Apollo program was squandered by a change in focus to Shuttle and space station programs that only reached orbit: "I spent some time analysing what we could have done had we used the budgets we received to explore the capabilities inherent in the Apollo hardware after it was built. The short answer is we would have been on Mars 15 or 20 years ago, instead of circling endlessly in low Earth orbit.""Houston, we have a problem: Nasa will struggle when shuttle retires, says boss" The Guardian July 26, 2008

Questions concerning NASA budget management Griffin has been criticized by space research organizations such as NASA Ames Research Center life sciences group for shifting portions of NASA's budget from science to human spaceflight. Griffin had stated that he would not shift "one thin dime" of funding from science to human spaceflight, but less than six months later, in February 2006, after NASA Constellation funding did not reach requested levels, NASA revealed a budget that reduced space research funding by about 25%, including indefinite deferrals of planned programs such as the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, the Terrestrial Planet Finder, and the Space Interferometry Mission. The logic was that funding Project Constellation, a presidentially mandated program, was the top priority of the space agency. Funding for a New York Company to research the Prometheus space nuclear program has also been put on hold, although Griffin has said he is anxious to pursue Prometheus after the earlier-priority development of the new spacecraft is completed.