NASA Chief Urges Focus During Space Shuttle Mission

HOUSTON -- NASA chief Michael Griffin urged space agency employees to stay focused on their work despite a turbulent year to date for the government organization.

?We?ve had a lot of distracting events in the news on NASA over the last five months,? Griffin told employees during an NASA-wide update from the agency?s Washington, D.C. headquarters. ?They?re depressing and distressing and distracting and diverting. I just want to urge everybody to keep the focus.?

The near flawless June 8 launch and ongoing mission of NASA?s space shuttle Atlantis and its STS-117 astronaut crew to the International Space Station (ISS) is an example of the payoffs to the space agency?s work, he said.

Over the last half year, NASA has seen:

• The arrest and subsequent dismissal of astronaut Lisa Nowak stemming from a bizarre love triangle with a fellow shuttle spaceflyer William Oefelein, who was also dismissed.

• A freak, mission-delaying hail storm that damaged the shuttle Atlantis fuel tank for the STS-117 mission.

• A murder-suicide here at the Johnson Space Center earlier this year.

• Two derailments of the same train carrying segments of shuttle rocket boosters to NASA?s Florida spaceport.

Griffin, himself, recently drew fire for statements that publicly doubted whether global warming was an issue humanity could and should respond to.

?I regretted having caused controversy,? Griffin said Tuesday. ?I didn?t do a very good job of answering the question, and that?s bad. I need to represent the agency in a better fashion.?

While Griffin spoke, 10 astronauts aboard NASA?s space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station unfurled a pair of new starboard solar arrays at the orbital laboratory.

The new solar arrays, which smoothly unfolded from the tip of the Starboard 3/Starboard 4 truss segments installed by the STS-117 and ISS astronauts during a Monday spacewalk, will prime the orbital laboratory for the future addition of new habitable modules and international laboratories.

?That?s what we are really all about, not distractions,? Griffin added.

NASA is broadcasting the space shuttle Atlantis' STS-117 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for mission updates and SPACE.com's video feed.

• SPACE.com Video Interplayer: Space Station Power Up with STS-117
• STS-117 Power Play: Atlantis Shuttle Crew to Deliver ISS Solar Wings
• Complete Shuttle Mission Coverage