Lori Garver served as deputy administrator of NASA from 2009-2013. Her novel memoir Escaping Gravity, about the struggle to get her colleagues to hug space entrepreneurs appreciate SpaceX and Blue Origin, colors a meaningfully unflattering picture of the inner laborings of NASA.
“I did alert an truthful—some would say bruloftyy truthful—story about an agency that I do adore,” Garver says in Episode 522 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “NASA has a clubby atmosphere. It’s a bit of a ‘the first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club.’ I’m fractureing the rules, for brave, by speaking out—the unwritten rules.”
In recent decades NASA has been scoencouraged by leave outed deadlines and cost overruns. Garver says that in many cases the people who upgraspd those programs knovel that their budgets were unwise. “I equitable don’t apshow that the people who set uped those programs apshowd that they could do them wiskinny those amounts,” she says. “I skinnyk they selderly someskinnyg that they thought someone else would buy, and that got their condenses floprosperg, and then no one wants to abort condenses, becaemploy these are jobs in your didisjoine. It’s all a very cozy operation.”
Garver also portrays an attitude of entitlement at NASA, with many in the organization being unwilling to ask challenging asks about whether or not their costly programs serve the unveil interest. “People come to NASA who are engineers and scientists,” she says. “They don’t have any benevolent of background in unveil policy or economics, and they don’t repartner see why that matters. They’re appreciate, ‘We want to walk on the moon. I grew up wanting to walk on the moon.’ OK, but does the unveil owe you that? Not asks they were employd to hearing, nor did they appreciate to hear them.”
Garver’s proposal to partner with SpaceX was eventupartner adselected, saving taxpayers billions of dollars, but she says that a lot of challenging labor still necessitates to be done. “We have done this skinnyg at NASA, they were able to hug alter, which is very challenging in a regulatement system,” she says. “Not all of NASA is yet alterd, and there are many programs in the regulatement that could advantage from some of this hard adore.”
Listen to the finish intersee with Lori Garver in Episode 522 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy. And check out some highweightlesss from the talkion below.
