08-31-2022, 09:39 AM
Full Title: Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age
Lori Garver held various positions at NASA over the years. She was never an astronaut (though she went through all the training and nearly went up on a promotional flight, but lost out to Lance Bass at the last moment), and never an engineer. Rather, she served as a reality check and had a strong voice in funding and projects. This pitted her against the space-military-industrial complex, which she describes as "an ice cream cone licking itself." She was perhaps at her most influential during the Obama presidency, when she and Obama both shared the same vision for the future of NASA. This meant cancelling the Constellation Program, a bloated attempt at filling the vacuum left by the end of the Shuttle Program, itself a ridiculously expensive bit of political engineering where components came from as many States as possible to get congressional approval, and two crews perished largely because NASA ignored their own safety procedures in attempts to increase launch cadence to make it more cost-effective.
Instead, Obama and Lori favored funding commercial ventures to produce the rockets for crew and cargo deliveries to the ISS. NASA's scope would be narrowed to what it does best, things like the James Web Space Telescope, or R&D, acting as pathfinder for future endeavors--essentially things that cannot be easily monetized by the private sector.
Historically, the President sets space policy and NASA follows it. But in a stunning departure, when Obama cancelled the Constellation Project and directed funds to go to commercial ventures, higher NASA officials and certain members of congress engineered an end-run around that put a new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), at the center of the spending bill. Obama and Lori were horrified, but had to hold their noses and treat the bill as a victory, because it did include a modicum of funds to commercial startups.
This book tells of Lori's many battles inside NASA, losing most of them because of how entrenched NASA is in its old ways. There are countless horror stories of corruption and incompetence and other examples of the ice cream cone licking itself. Of the many villains, Florida Senator Bill Nelson is prominent, dead-set against commercial companies having any role in space matters. On one occasion he even yelled at Lori, "Get your boy Elon in line!" when he was becoming too much of a threat.
During the Obama administration, Lori was asked to recommend someone for NASA administrator. A trusted friend of hers advised her to avoid anyone from the military or former astronauts. Lori was friends with several astronauts and liked many of them, but they were treated so much like gods that they didn't want anything to change, so they were wholly opposed to opening things up to commercial companies. Perhaps most vocal about this were Armstrong and Cernan, the first and last men to walk on the moon. Lori's friend then revised her advise, saying, "No astronauts unless it's Sally Ride." Sally Ride did not appear popular with some astronauts, perhaps because she didn't subscribe to their club of entitlement.
Lori eventually left NASA. When asked by a reporter whether she thought the SLS would be successful, she said yes, though it would likely be a year or two late. This infuriated the whole space-military-industrial complex. NASA officials confronted her on the comment. They hadn't heard anything about delays. In fact, they insisted they were six months ahead of schedule.
The SLS was supposed to be finished in 2017. It has now slipped by 5 years. As for development cost, I've heard numbers as high as 40 billion. The cost for each launch is 4.1 billion, a number that will never go down. That's because none of the SLS is reusable.
When LCF and I were down at Kennedy Space Center, we watched a NASA presentation touting the SLS as their workhorse rocket for the next 30 years. (There was never any mention of SpaceX.) If that is true, we are in deep trouble.
Incredibly, President Biden picked Bill Nelson to be NASA Administrator. He now claims to have supported SpaceX from the very beginning and takes credit for its success. Under him is a supportive position of Deputy Administrator. Lori was a leading candidate to be picked for that position. But then abruptly, and very mysteriously, her name was dropped.
Lori is very upbeat about NASA's future. She helped wedge a foot in the door for commercial companies. SpaceX has already proven its immense value. Without it, we'd still be wholly reliant on Russia for sending crew to the ISS. Can you imagine how this would hamper our support of Ukraine in the current conflict?
I believe the SLS still sits on pad 39A, launch imminent. When that moment comes, I'll try very hard not to see it as an ice cream cone licking itself.
Lori Garver held various positions at NASA over the years. She was never an astronaut (though she went through all the training and nearly went up on a promotional flight, but lost out to Lance Bass at the last moment), and never an engineer. Rather, she served as a reality check and had a strong voice in funding and projects. This pitted her against the space-military-industrial complex, which she describes as "an ice cream cone licking itself." She was perhaps at her most influential during the Obama presidency, when she and Obama both shared the same vision for the future of NASA. This meant cancelling the Constellation Program, a bloated attempt at filling the vacuum left by the end of the Shuttle Program, itself a ridiculously expensive bit of political engineering where components came from as many States as possible to get congressional approval, and two crews perished largely because NASA ignored their own safety procedures in attempts to increase launch cadence to make it more cost-effective.
Instead, Obama and Lori favored funding commercial ventures to produce the rockets for crew and cargo deliveries to the ISS. NASA's scope would be narrowed to what it does best, things like the James Web Space Telescope, or R&D, acting as pathfinder for future endeavors--essentially things that cannot be easily monetized by the private sector.
Historically, the President sets space policy and NASA follows it. But in a stunning departure, when Obama cancelled the Constellation Project and directed funds to go to commercial ventures, higher NASA officials and certain members of congress engineered an end-run around that put a new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), at the center of the spending bill. Obama and Lori were horrified, but had to hold their noses and treat the bill as a victory, because it did include a modicum of funds to commercial startups.
This book tells of Lori's many battles inside NASA, losing most of them because of how entrenched NASA is in its old ways. There are countless horror stories of corruption and incompetence and other examples of the ice cream cone licking itself. Of the many villains, Florida Senator Bill Nelson is prominent, dead-set against commercial companies having any role in space matters. On one occasion he even yelled at Lori, "Get your boy Elon in line!" when he was becoming too much of a threat.
During the Obama administration, Lori was asked to recommend someone for NASA administrator. A trusted friend of hers advised her to avoid anyone from the military or former astronauts. Lori was friends with several astronauts and liked many of them, but they were treated so much like gods that they didn't want anything to change, so they were wholly opposed to opening things up to commercial companies. Perhaps most vocal about this were Armstrong and Cernan, the first and last men to walk on the moon. Lori's friend then revised her advise, saying, "No astronauts unless it's Sally Ride." Sally Ride did not appear popular with some astronauts, perhaps because she didn't subscribe to their club of entitlement.
Lori eventually left NASA. When asked by a reporter whether she thought the SLS would be successful, she said yes, though it would likely be a year or two late. This infuriated the whole space-military-industrial complex. NASA officials confronted her on the comment. They hadn't heard anything about delays. In fact, they insisted they were six months ahead of schedule.
The SLS was supposed to be finished in 2017. It has now slipped by 5 years. As for development cost, I've heard numbers as high as 40 billion. The cost for each launch is 4.1 billion, a number that will never go down. That's because none of the SLS is reusable.
When LCF and I were down at Kennedy Space Center, we watched a NASA presentation touting the SLS as their workhorse rocket for the next 30 years. (There was never any mention of SpaceX.) If that is true, we are in deep trouble.
Incredibly, President Biden picked Bill Nelson to be NASA Administrator. He now claims to have supported SpaceX from the very beginning and takes credit for its success. Under him is a supportive position of Deputy Administrator. Lori was a leading candidate to be picked for that position. But then abruptly, and very mysteriously, her name was dropped.
Lori is very upbeat about NASA's future. She helped wedge a foot in the door for commercial companies. SpaceX has already proven its immense value. Without it, we'd still be wholly reliant on Russia for sending crew to the ISS. Can you imagine how this would hamper our support of Ukraine in the current conflict?
I believe the SLS still sits on pad 39A, launch imminent. When that moment comes, I'll try very hard not to see it as an ice cream cone licking itself.
I'm nobody's pony.
![[Image: x24.gif]](https://i.gifer.com/x24.gif)