NASA Administrator Michael Griffin continues to support the space shuttle retirement before 2010, but says the lack of adequate funding and irrational interference of the Bush administration in space program policies will affect America’s space achievements on a long term.

In a leaked e-mail obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, Griffin said he is as pessimistic as he could possible be about the future of American manned missions into space. Furthermore, he added that just as he predicted, “events have unfolded in a way that makes it clear how unwise it was for the US to adopt a policy of deliberate dependence upon another power for access to the ISS.”

Griffin explained that “in a rational world,” they would have been allowed to choose a shuttle retirement date based on the availability of Ares and Orion, they would have been asked to deploy them as soon as possible rather than “no later than 2014” and they would have benefited from an adequate budged.

“The rational approach didn’t happen, primarily because for OSTP and OMB, retiring the Shuttle is a jihad rather than an engineering and program management decision,” Griffin wrote, adding that “they actively do not want the ISS to be sustained, and have done everything possible to ensure that it would not be.”

The NASA Administrator expressed his disbelief that the US will somehow manage to get access to the ISS after 2011, saying that even if additional funding for Ares/Orion would be granted, it would be impossible to launch them earlier than 2014.

Regarding the next administration’s position on continuing operations past 2010, Griffin said “they will tell us to extend shuttle,” which will create no damage they would care about; however, that will delay the lunar program, which will affect the US space leadership on a long term.

Griffin said there should be a “plan B” in case the next administration will want to operate the shuttle beyond 2010. This would ensure the less possible damage to the Ares/Orion development. NASA confirmed the e-mail is legit, but Griffin did not make any comments on it.