Lori Garver served as deputy administrator of NASA from 2009 to 2013. Her new memoir Escape from gravityabout the struggle to get his colleagues to accept space entrepreneurs like SpaceX and Blue Origin, paints a deeply unflattering picture of NASA’s inner workings.
“I told an honest (some would say brutally honest) story about an agency I love,” Garver says in episode 522 of the series. geek guide to the galaxy podcast. “NASA has a club atmosphere. It’s a bit like “the first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club.” “I am sure I am breaking the rules by speaking openly – the unwritten rules.”
In recent decades, NASA has been plagued by missed deadlines and cost overruns. Garver says that in many cases the people who promoted these programs knew their budgets were unrealistic. “I just don’t think the people who designed those programs believed they could run them within those numbers,” he says. “I think they sold something that they thought someone else would buy, and that got their contracts flowing, and then no one wants to cancel contracts, because they are jobs in their district. It is a very welcoming operation.”
Garver also describes an attitude of entitlement at NASA, where many in the organization are unwilling to ask difficult questions about whether or not their expensive programs serve the public interest. “People who are engineers and scientists come to NASA,” he says. “They don’t have any kind of experience in public policy or economics, and they don’t really see why that’s important. They say: ‘We want to walk on the moon.’ I grew up wanting to walk on the moon.’ Okay, but does the public owe you that? Not questions that they were used to hearing, nor would they like to hear them.”
Garver’s proposal to partner with SpaceX was ultimately adopted, saving taxpayers billions of dollars, but she says there is still a lot of work to be done. “We’ve done this at NASA, they were able to embrace change, which is very difficult in a government system,” he says. “Not all of NASA has changed yet, and there are many programs in the government that could benefit from some of this tough love.”
Listen to the full interview with Lori Garver in episode 522 of geek guide to the galaxy. And check out some highlights from the discussion below.