NASA

Reports: NASA deputy administrator Garver resigning

In a development that has surprised many in the space community, NASA Watch and Space News report that NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver will leave the space agency to take a position outside the space industry. Garver will reportedly take a position with the Air Line Pilots Association, and a formal announcement could come as soon as today. “After quite an extensive decision process, I have decided to make a career change,” Garver writes in an email late yesterday quoted by both publications.

Update: NASA released statements this morning from administrator Charles Bolden and OSTP director John Holdren confirming Garver’s departure from NASA, effective one month from today.

117 comments to Reports: NASA deputy administrator Garver resigning

  • Scott Bass

    Popped in here just to read the comments on this, not unhappy but was surprised too, I figured she would stick around for bolden’s retirement…..I don’t think either of them has been effective… Easy to blame the president or congress…. Regardless NASA remains in suspended animation

  • History will judge Lori Garver as the vision that fundamentally changed this nation’s destiny in space. Lori will be judged responsible for opening space, one day, to the masses.

    This may be why she was so blunt at NewSpace 2013 about the porkers in Congress. She knew she was taking a job with ALPA.

    I hope she writes a tell-all book about her dealings with Congress, OldSpace and NewSpace. The public has a right to know about how the space-industrial complex has been squandering billions of taxpayer dollars on pork for a few members of Congress.

    • This may be why she was so blunt at NewSpace 2013 about the porkers in Congress.

      Yes, it makes sense now. She could finally be honest, knowing she wouldn’t have to deal with them any more.

      • DCSCA

        “Yes, it makes sense now. She could finally be honest, knowing she wouldn’t have to deal with them any more.” says Simberg.

        Hmmmm. Chances are as a lobbyist for te ALPA, she will. But calling a Congressman a porker is like calling a fish wet. Like they really care. Besides, she made her living feeding off that prok as a lobbyist for years.

  • Scott Bass

    I’m not sure history will judge that kindly, a tell all book cuts both ways and most likely would highlight the missteps and lack of leadership skills that reared there ugly head over and over the past few years

  • Dark Blue Nine

    Garver had good instincts, but she wasn’t effective at translating them into action. It will be up to the history books whether her ineffectiveness was due to failings on her part, or the difficult situation at NASA with the legacy Shuttle institution, lousy budget environment, and increasing partisanship and stupidity in Congress.

    Regardless, NASA’s major problems at the outset of Garver’s tenure — no domestic crew transport to ISS, exploration bankrupted by ridiculously expensive legacy Shuttle and Apollo systems, broken (JWST) and underfunded (Mars, Europa, WFIRST) science priorities, and a poorly managed and meandering space technology program — all remain the same. It is doubtful at this point that they will be fixed before Bolden leaves or a new Administration enters office.

    • DCSCA

      “Garver had good instincts, but she wasn’t effective at translating them into action.” weeps dbn

      That’s not saying much for somebody whose professional career experience has been chiefly that of a Washington lobbyist. Do an ineffective lobbyist lands with the ALPA. That move is their loss and clearly NASA’s gain.

    • It is interesting that the comments so far are talking about her tenure there as if SHE were the leading force at the agency.

      Bob Clark

    • DCSCA

      “NASA’s major problems at the outset of Garver’s tenure — no domestic crew transport to ISS.”

      That’s news to the shuttle crews rocketing to orbit and docking w/t ISS at the ‘outset of her tenue.’

      • Vladislaw

        It was ordered to be canceled by President Bush in 2004. When she came in .. domestic service to LEO was one of her main concerns. If you listen to bill gerstenmier’s testimony on capital hill he made that clear .. over and over and over …

      • Coastal Ron

        DCSCA mumbled:

        That’s news to the shuttle crews rocketing to orbit and docking w/t ISS…

        The Shuttle could not KEEP people at the ISS, only ROTATE them.

        Sheesh, your ignorance on this matter is pretty profound.

  • Scott Bass

    I agree Dark Blue Nine, the judgements I am making are not about policy or whether I agree with them or not, it is about implementation……. What we really don’t know is whether the ineptness was a result of being hamstrung further up in the administration or if Bolden/garver just did not have the skills to guide the new policy through the shark infested waters. I suspect both along with the other factors you mentioned. Regardless you are correct that that ship has sailed, it lame duck for a while now.

    It is ironic that NASA could have been one area where the two party’s could have worked together….. Lack of vision or lack of leadership? I say leadership

    • Ferris Valyn

      Forgive me, but why assume space is so special, so important, that its one area where the two party’s could work together?

      • DCSCA

        HSF is an instrument of politics; a means of projecting national policy– it’s political science, not rocket science that drives it. That’s why.

        Human spaceflight in this era projects geo-political influence, economic vigor and technical prowess, around the globe for the nation(s) that choose to do it. And it plays out on a stage with high visibility that demands performance with engineering excellence from all the actors. The bounties from which are all reaped by the participating nation(s) on Earth. That’s why government’s do it.

        It is space projects of scale that matter. Which is why, in the long run, short-sighted forays by deep-pocketed NewSpace hobbyists do not.

        HSF is, in effect, a loss leader in this era for projecting national power and nurturing a perception of leadership. And in politics, perception is a reality. Which makes a drive to establishing a permanent foothold on Luna, seen around the world by all peoples in their evening skies, all the more imperative for the United States in this century.

        Commercial is welcome to come along for the ride– to supplement and service an exploration/exploitation outpost on Luna, established by governent(s). But they’ll never lead the way in establishing such a facility on their own The largess of the capital requirements involved coupled w/t low to no ROI prevents it; the very parameters of the market it is trying to create and service. That’s why governments do it. Ans will continue to do so for decades to come.

        • Coastal Ron

          DCSCA opined:

          Human spaceflight in this era projects geo-political influence…

          To who? Who are we trying to influence? You have failed to answer this question for months.

          …economic vigor and technical prowess

          We would get the same “economic vigor” from any type of pure government deficit spending.

          And as far as “technical prowess”, while NASA is rehashing the 60’s, it’s the private market is that doing all the innovation (i.e. technical prowess). Do you see NASA working on reusable rocket stages?

          It is space projects of scale that matter.

          You say that in one sentence, and diss them in another. You really don’t have a clue how you feel about this topic.

          In any case, there are no “space projects of scale” that are planned to be funded. The ISS (the last “space projects of scale”) is likely to be it for a long time, especially with the Do-Nothing Congress we have today.

        • Gregori

          Where is the money?

  • Scott Bass

    It is special because in general it is supported by both sides of the isle and although most of us agree a lot of that support is pork related overall a well crafted vision with compromises to appease will make it through both houses……. This is in contrast to the current state of affairs where the deciding factor of whether the GOP is against something simply because the president is for it. It is one thing to have a vision, but you have to sell that vision and craft it in a way that everyone gets on board, the administration failed horribly at that and it is clear that SLS is a result of that failure….. Not wanting to debate SLS but that whole program is a direct result of the lack of leadership and understanding of how things work and what compromises have to be made to make major changes in direction…… Bolden and Garver share responsibility for that.

    • Ferris Valyn

      Sorry Scott, but that is wrong, and has been wrong. The reality is there is a very limited group of people (that includes some R’s and some D’s) who care about space (for whatever reason). The rest of Congress, by and large, don’t care. That doesn’t make it a bi-partisan issue. That makes it a low tier issue. Its like the claim that ASTP (or the Miracle on Ice) enabled the US to win the Cold War.

      And yes, I submit that part of the reason space has gotten partisan is because we are in a hyper-partisan environment. People are beginning to wake up to the fact that something is/going to change, and that change isn’t going to be pleasant. Space doesn’t have any characteristics/qualities that enable it to remain non-partisan in a hyper-partisan environment

  • Jim Nobles

    I for one will be sorry to see Garver go. She at least understood that things had to change. That the old way won’t work anymore and, indeed, hasn’t worked in awhile.

  • Scott Bass

    I disagree Ferris…. Except for the part of it being low on the totem pole. That’s cool though, we all have our own thoughts on the matter…… One thing is for certain though, the administrations handling of Space policy has been a train wreck…. The debate is why…. Not if it was

    • Ferris Valyn

      I disagree. It wasn’t “this administration”, although they did definitely make mistakes. But Congress also played a role, in this train wreck.

    • Coastal Ron

      Scott Bass said:

      One thing is for certain though, the administrations handling of Space policy has been a train wreck…

      I think you are generalizing. Pick a specific NASA program or effort and describe your reasoning.

      For instance, I look back at the choices at NASA that were facing Obama when he came to office.

      Calling for the Augustine commission was the right call, as was calling for the cancellation of the Constellation program (and ignoring the calls to extend the Shuttle).

      As I said back then, even with the horse trading that resulted in the SLS and MPCV I still think Obama got 80% of what he wanted (including extending the ISS and creating Commercial Crew).

      Taking the long view, I think the ISS and Commercial Crew will have a much more positive effect on the future of space exploration than the battles Obama didn’t win with the SLS and MPCV.

      Could Obama, Bolden and Garver have been more aggressive in pushing for certain things for NASA? No doubt. But considering that NASA is less than 0.5% of the national budget, and we had this thing on called “The Biggest Recession In Our Lifetime” (plus two wars), I can understand why maybe they weren’t higher priority.

      • Jim

        Coastal Ron,

        ISS was assured of operations beyond 2015 per the 2008 NASA Auth. Act, PL. 110-422,

        SEC. 601. <> PLAN TO SUPPORT OPERATION AND
        UTILIZATION OF THE ISS BEYOND FISCAL YEAR 2015.

        (a) In General.–The Administrator shall take all necessary steps to ensure that the International Space Station remains a viable and productive facility capable of potential United States utilization through at least 2020 and shall take no steps that would preclude its continued operation and utilization by the United States after 2015.

        http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-110publ422/html/PLAW-110publ422.htm

        • Coastal Ron

          Jim said:

          ISS was assured of operations beyond 2015 per the 2008 NASA Auth. Act, PL. 110-422

          It was assured of being authorized, but not of being funded. If you look at the plans for Constellation funding, it required the ISS funding to end after 2015. NASA was even saying it publicly back in 2009.

          Had you never heard of that plan?

          • Jim

            Think you better read the 2008 NASA Authorization Act, Sec. 601, again…all of it even down to 601 b) 2) C) 1) E) at the bottom that Sec 601.

            SEC. 601. <> PLAN TO SUPPORT OPERATION AND
            UTILIZATION OF THE ISS BEYOND FISCAL YEAR 2015.

            (a) In General.–The Administrator shall take all necessary steps to
            ensure that the International Space Station remains a

            [[Page 122 STAT. 4794]]

            viable and productive facility capable of potential United States
            utilization through at least 2020 and shall take no steps that would
            preclude its continued operation and utilization by the United States
            after 2015.
            (b) Plan To Support Operations and Utilization of the International
            Space Station Beyond Fiscal Year 2015.–
            (1) In <> general.–Not later than 9 months
            after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall
            submit to the Committee on Science and Technology of the House
            of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
            Transportation of the Senate a plan to support the operations
            and utilization of the International Space Station beyond fiscal
            year 2015 for a period of not less than 5 years. The plan shall
            be an update and expansion of the operation plan of the
            International Space Station National Laboratory submitted to
            Congress in May 2007 under section 507 of the National
            Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2005
            (42 U.S.C. 16767).
            (2) Content.–
            (A) Requirements to support operation and
            utilization of the iss beyond fiscal year 2015.–As part
            of the plan required in paragraph (1), the Administrator
            shall provide each of the following:
            (i) A list of critical hardware necessary to
            support International Space Station operations
            through the year 2020.
            (ii) Specific known or anticipated maintenance
            actions that would need to be performed to support
            International Space Station operations and
            research through the year 2020.
            (iii) Annual upmass and downmass requirements,
            including potential vehicles that will deliver
            such upmass and downmass, to support the
            International Space Station after the retirement
            of the Space Shuttle and through the year 2020.
            (B) ISS national laboratory research management
            plan.–As part of the plan required in paragraph (1),
            the Administrator shall develop a Research Management
            Plan for the International Space Station. Such Plan
            shall include a process for selecting and prioritizing
            research activities (including fundamental, applied,
            commercial, and other research) for flight on the
            International Space Station. Such Plan shall be used to
            prioritize resources such as crew time, racks and
            equipment, and United States access to international
            research facilities and equipment. Such Plan shall also
            identify the organization to be responsible for managing
            United States research on the International Space
            Station, including a description of the relationship of
            the management institution with NASA (e.g., internal
            NASA office, contract, cooperative agreement, or grant),
            the estimated length of time for the arrangement, and
            the budget required to support the management
            institution. Such Plan shall be developed in
            consultation with other Federal agencies, academia,
            industry, and other relevant stakeholders. The
            Administrator may request the support of the National
            Academy of Sciences or other appropriate independent entity, including an external consultant, in
            developing the Plan.
            (C) Establishment of process for access to national
            laboratory.–As part of the plan required in paragraph
            (1), the Administrator shall–
            (i) establish a process by which to support
            International Space Station National Laboratory
            users in identifying their requirements for
            transportation of research supplies to and from
            the International Space Station, and for
            communicating those requirements to NASA and
            International Space Station transportation
            services providers; and
            (ii) <> develop an estimate of
            the transportation requirements needed to support
            users of the International Space Station National
            Laboratory and develop a plan for satisfying those
            requirements by dedicating a portion of volume on
            NASA supply missions to the International Space
            Station.
            (D) Assessment of equipment to support research.–As
            part of the plan required in paragraph (1), the
            Administrator shall–
            (i) provide a list of critical hardware that
            is anticipated to be necessary to support
            nonexploration-related and exploration-related
            research through the year 2020;
            (ii) identify existing research equipment and
            racks and support equipment that are manifested
            for flight; and
            (iii) provide a detailed description of the
            status of research equipment and facilities that
            were completed or in development prior to being
            cancelled, and provide the budget and milestones
            for completing and preparing the equipment for
            flight on the International Space Station.
            (E) Budget plan.–As part of the plan required in
            paragraph (1), the Administrator shall provide a budget
            plan that reflects the anticipated use of such
            activities and the projected amounts to be required for
            fiscal years 2010 through 2020 to accomplish the
            objectives of the activities described in subparagraphs
            (A) through (D).

            • Ferris Valyn

              That merely laid some of the groundwork for extension

              It did not formally extend ISS.

              Its very comparable to what the current NASA reauth is doing to ISS

            • Coastal Ron

              Jim said in a very long post:

              Think you better read the 2008 NASA Authorization Act, Sec. 601, again

              It doesn’t matter what the law says, it only matters what Congress funds.

              And maybe you didn’t read the article I linked, but here is a much shorter snippet that is much more relevant:

              “In the first quarter of 2016, we’ll prep and de-orbit the spacecraft,” says NASA’s space station program manager, Michael T. Suffredini.

              Now if you think NASA was somehow ignoring the law in 2009, then I suggest you take it up with NASA. But according to NASA, that was the plan.

      • DCSCA

        Taking the long view, I think the ISS and Commercial Crew will have a much more positive effect

        Then you are short sighted. For both are doomed – one to a Pacific grave and the other to bankruptcy courts.

  • Scott Bass

    The asteroid thing is the latest example,, it is beyond me how politics can be played so badly… Or more precisely, not played at all….. It’s like they did not even make an effort to even try to make a few phone calls to stakeholders and congress to gauge support.. they seem to be truly operating in a reality distortion field to where they think their ideas are so great that everyone will just jump on board. the bad part is they keep doing this over and over. Pick up the phone

    • Coastal Ron

      Scott Bass said:

      The asteroid thing is the latest example,, it is beyond me how politics can be played so badly… Or more precisely, not played at all…

      I think we’ll have to wait for Garvers tell-all book on this, because you have to remember who broke the news about this first – Senator Nelson.

      And since Nelson is one of the “fathers” of the SLS, I suspect he had a hand in the idea for making the ARM an early mission for the SLS.

      As Ferris stated, Congress has a hand in this too.

    • Hiram

      I largely agree with this sentiment. Lori Garver certainly had her heart in the right place for NASA, and her insistence on commercial approaches to success, as well as the need for technology development were laudable.

      But she fell down badly on ARM. She was one of the strongest proponents of that mission in the agency, continually reminding everyone that the challenge of visiting an asteroid had been set for them by the President. It was job-one. In spite of that, she allowed a rationale-thin and conceptually lacking version of that mission to be presented to Congress, who had gotten little or no cultivation from the agency about it. There were several holes that she shot in her foot. At the least, a mission that was poorly defined, and a legislative strategy that was strikingly incompetent.

      Now, in her defense, the real problem here is the (somewhat offhand, as far as I can tell) directive from the President to have humans visit an asteroid. That directive had little or no rationale attached to it, except that it was somewhere to go where we hadn’t already gone. I have to pity NASA leadership in that the White House has really given them very little guidance about long range goals. Their flailing is largely what has been handed down to them.

      • Fred Willett

        There was considerable justification for the asteroid mission. You’ll find it by reading the Augustine committee’s report.
        The costs of Constellation – or any other heavy lift vehicle – were so great that there would be no possible monies to develop landers thus ruling out any surface ops on either the Moon or Mars. This was so even if NASA got the $3B budget increase suggested by Augustine. All that left was in space operations. Hence the asteroid mission.
        Costing weren’t pulled out of the air. They were done by the Aerospace corp. You want to hear the bad news in detail watch the Sally Ride presentation
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RwqYIw_C-4
        An asteroid mission isn’t a silly diversion from a “real” mission to a planetary surface. In fact it is the only mission that is affordable.
        The fans of moon or mars missions didn’t want to hear this and just ignore it.

        • “There was considerable justification for the asteroid mission. You’ll find it by reading the Augustine committee’s report.
          The costs of Constellation – or any other heavy lift vehicle – were so great that there would be no possible monies to develop landers thus ruling out any surface ops on either the Moon or Mars.”

          Actually most supporters of Mars or Moon missions would take this as justification for canceling the SLS.
          I have a different take on it however. I don’t agree a lunar lander has to be that expensive. It does if you make it the size of the Altair, at three times the size of the Apollo lunar lander. But it doesn’t have to be that big. With the advance in technology in the 40 years since Apollo we can make the lander smaller, not larger, than Apollo.
          But the key fact is by making your lander that much smaller, and cheaper, you make the entire system smaller and cheaper, and you wind up delivering more payload and crew to the Moon by making multiple low cost flights to the Moon rather than one large, expensive, and very infrequent one.
          And of course also important is that such flights are so much cheaper that you can actually field it rather than getting nothing. Something is better than nothing obviously!

          Bob Clark

          • Coastal Ron

            Robert Clark said:

            Actually most supporters of Mars or Moon missions would take this as justification for canceling the SLS.

            Yep.

            But the key fact is by making your lander that much smaller, and cheaper, you make the entire system smaller and cheaper…

            Yes, that would work. And that is essentially what Golden Spike is doing.

            I do have a contrary thought though. With the ability to refuel at will, the size of the lander is no longer linked directly to the rocket it launched on, so the lander could be large – or medium, or small. The same refueling architecture supports them all.

            And of course also important is that such flights are so much cheaper that you can actually field it rather than getting nothing.

            Ah, now you are getting into reading the minds of those in Congress, where “what’s in it for me and mine” plays a bigger part of any equation.

            • “Ah, now you are getting into reading the minds of those in Congress, where “what’s in it for me and mine” plays a bigger part of any equation.”

              That’s the basic conundrum of manned spaceflight. Supposedly we do want to make it low cost to make it routine. On the other hand it’s the BIG projects that bring jobs and money to the congressman’s districts and states, so they will have the tendency to support those projects.
              That’s why I say the only hope to get low cost space access is the commercial approach.

              Bob Clark

        • Hiram

          “There was considerable justification for the asteroid mission. You’ll find it by reading the Augustine committee’s report.”

          Hardly. The five year old Augustine report repeatedly, and briefly, referred to an asteroid mission as “another potential destination”. That’s not what I call a “justification”, and they weren’t even thinking about an ARM-like mission.

          The idea that since we can’t afford to land on the Moon or Mars constitutes a “justifcation” for a trip to an asteroid is just bonkers. Even if it’s established that it’s affordable. Is that what it’s come to? The purpose of human spaceflight is going to a rock we can afford to get to? That’s a policy-bankrupt strategy. That we can’t afford to land on the Moon or Mars is merely a justification to think about whether there are any real opportunities for an asteroid visit.

          We can “afford” to go visit a cubesat in LEO, or maybe a dead comsat in GEO, which we can pretend are rocks (hey, we’ve never done it before!), but that doesn’t justify going there.

          What Aerospace costed long ago was a highly notional “Gee, maybe we can go to an asteroid” mission. ARM, which was what Congress was asked to buy into, was NEVER costed responsibly. Congressional skepticism for that buy-in was thus well founded.

  • Scott Bass

    Congress plays a huge role Ferris, that’s my point….. If you have a plan, talk to them, compromise, modify…. Then when you know where all the chips are, announce, promote…. It’s not rocket science…… There is a serious lack of communication

  • Scott Bass

    Ron…. Definitely not saying Congress did not have a role…. Just saying the administration has responsibility of canvassing them as part of the decision making process…… At the very least involving the appropriations committee…….

    • Vladislaw

      You just do not get it Scott. There is NOTHING the President could have brougt to the table. If the President proposed anything that would have led to a “success” for the President, it was off the table…. period. Hell look at the memo from Luntz that was made public. The republicans should load up every single bill with crap ammendments, then when the bill comes up for a vote, vote against it and then site all the crap ammendments for why you are voting against it. They did this repeatedly.

      They wanted apollo on steriods, refused to fund it, then blame the President when the program fails and get cuts.

      If you look at President Obama’s first NASA budget, it looked more like the funding that was expected for President Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration, *before Griffin came on board and torpedoed it*.

      The party of no’s strategy from the start was vote no on everything, keep the economy in the tank and ride it out and under no circumstance allow the President legislation that would give him successes.

      The priority, as McConnel spelled out was, make sure this president fails… end of story.

      • Scott Bass

        I’m a supporter of the President…. Voted for him and am well aware of the GOP and there goals, however I do not give the president a pass, a serious lack of leadership for NASA has prevailed since he took office…. Again I am not talking about vision….. I am talking about implementation, …. Fail…..

        • Vladislaw

          On that point I would agree, as an arm chair quarterback, I said from the start he should have pushed commercial space to the point the republicans would have had to fund it. He was branded as a big spender, increase the size of government, he could have used commercializing a big government agency against the republicans because it is a favorite talking point. Also he could have did zero G – zero tax for human operation in space, would have cost nothing but a great selling point about always wanting tax increases. I thought space could have been pushed a lot of ways.

  • Scott Bass

    Farris, if your right then it would go a long way to explain why our government is nonfunctional, when you think about how easy it is to type an email, this is what I am thinking, what do you think?….

    • Ferris Valyn

      Scott – typing an email isn’t the problem. Its whether either side is actually interested in finding common ground/compromising.

      Thats not the situation right now.

  • Jim Muncy

    Scott,

    If a political official at NASA sent an email to a Republican staffer on the Hill, the maximum upside is honest feedback, the maximum downside is to have the proposal leaked to the media with an attack by an elected official.

    This is why the two sides don’t talk to each other. It’s not worth it.

    – Jim

    • Scott Bass

      It seems preferable to have leaked discussions over non modified proposals that get shot down in committee …. Not saying your not right, just that its a sad way to do business

  • amightywind

    A cannot recall a deputy NASA administrator that had as high a profile. Indeed, I believe she was the ideological leader of the agency, and Bolden just a functionary. Her reign was toxic. I hope manned spaceflight can recover.

    • Coastal Ron

      amightywind said:

      I hope manned spaceflight can recover.

      What an odd statement.

      The Michael Griffin plan was to stop human spaceflight, and then only do it sporadically to pick up rocks that didn’t advance our ability to explore space.

      Canceling the Constellation program allowed the ISS to continue it’s mission, which is to help develop the technologies and techniques we need to venture farther and longer out into space.

      In whatever capacity Garver helped save the ISS, and get Commercial Crew going, that is a good legacy.

      • “The Michael Griffin plan was to stop human spaceflight, and then only do it sporadically to pick up rocks that didn’t advance our ability to explore space.”

        Many people have derided Griffin’s Constellation program of derailing human spaceflight, but that was certainly not its purpose. Its primary failing was not properly accounting for the finances that would lead to it being canceled.

        Bob Clark

  • General comment …

    Those who think that Garver and/or Bolden could have asked Congress nicely to change fifty years of porkery are delusional.

    I’ve heard one story after another from folks who’ve worked for NASA over the decades as a congressional liaison on the Hill. Going back to the 1980s, members of Congress made it clear to them that they weren’t interested in space other than to assure that jobs in their districts/states were protected. I just watched a YouTube video on the career of Wernher von Braun; biographer Bob Ward said von Braun faced the same from John Stennis, who told him he didn’t care what von Braun did so long as no jobs were cut in Mississippi.

    Ward quoted von Braun as saying the trick was to try to get away with as much as you could, and ask forgiveness afterwards. He quoted the old adage, “It’s a lot easier to ask forgiveness than get permission.” As an example, he cited how von Braun built a neutral buoyancy tank at Marshall by miscategorizing it as “equipment.” When found it, Congress pitched a fit, but of course they didn’t make him tear it down.

    As we saw in 2010 with the Constellation cancellation and in 2013 with the Asteroid Retrieval Mission, both times Bolden/Garver did an end-run on Congress. There was simply no way to get Congress to buy off on those changes. Sure, Congress pitched a fit, but in the end Constellation was cancelled. It was replaced by SLS, but at least SLS for all its faults isn’t the engineering disaster that Constellation was. With ARM, the Republicans in the House are trying to forbid it, but the Democrats in the Senate are leaving it up to NASA. We’ll see what happens once we get to reconciliation, but I suspect ARM will proceed albeit with inadequate funding.

    Garver has been trying to undo a half-century of Congressional malfeasance. That can’t be done overnight.

    In October 2011, Garver cited a 1961 article by prominent Republican Raplh J. Cordiner, who forewarned of the consequences of a government-dominated space program. Cordiner was right, and it took a Democratic deputy administrator to publicly acknowledge it.

    Garver’s achievement was to keep NewSpace on life support long enough that Congress couldn’t strangle it in the crib. After years of Congressional funding cuts, this year it looks like commercial crew will finally get something close to what the Obama administration requested. It’s a grudging admission by the Congressional porkers that commercial crew has to succeed in the national interest.

    I suspect we’ll also find she was the primary conduit that led to the unfunded SAA between NASA and Bigelow in March that could result in NewSpace leading the next-generation lunar human spaceflight program. If boots are on the Moon by 2025, thank Garver, even if those boots exited a hatch with a Golden Spike logo on it.

    • Vladislaw

      Great article on your blog. Reposting it on facebook.

    • Dark Blue Nine

      “members of Congress made it clear to them that they weren’t interested in space other than to assure that jobs in their districts/states were protected”

      No doubt, this is the key.

      But that doesn’t mean that the people in those jobs have to design, develop, build and operate the same set of subsystems they’ve been designing, developing, building, and operating for the past 40-odd years. An engineer working SSMEs doesn’t have to keep working SSMEs. That LOX/LH2 engine knowledge can create engines for transit stages. An engineer working ET tanks doesn’t have to keep working ET tanks. That LOX and LH2 storage knowledge can create in-space prop depots. An engineer working STS reentry doesn’t have to keep working Shuttle tiles. That reentry knowledge can create large Mars entry vehicles. Disciplines like avionics, power, and thermal are even more fungible, and the technician/secretarial/HR support behind them even more so.

      I’m no fan of the NASA workforce, but if you’re right and Tip O’Neill’s maxim that “all politics is local” is what’s driving the repeated failures of the Administration’s civil space initiatives, then the Administration is to blame for never making the local argument about how their initiatives would maintain NASA employment by shifting workers from Program A to Programs X, Y, and Z. We never saw that kind of argument, commitment, or the workforce numbers to back it up when the Administration rolled out its Constellation replacement programs, and we never saw it earlier this year when ARM was proposed.

      I don’t lay this failure at Garver’s doorstep because we don’t know who did what in the Administration and White House before these initiatives were rolled out. That decision process is embargoed, and for all we know, Garver was pounding her fists for a sane workforce transition plan instead of the vacuum that ensued. And maybe the hyperpartisan environment on the Hill would have rendered even Tip O’Neill’s maxim useless. But the fact that the Administration never got to square one on the politics 101 topic of workforce redistribution is not Congress’s fault. As venal and stupid as Congress is, at some level their rejection of the Administration’s civil space initiatives is just them doing their job under the Constitution and protecting their constituents’ local interests. In the absence of any workforce argument, commitment, or plan from the Administration, it’s hard to see how the key members in Congress could have reacted differently. Even a workforce commitment and detailed plan might not have been enough to get the Administration’s civil space initiatives off the ground, but the Administration also didn’t even bother to try.

      (I’d also argue that the Administration didn’t even bother to try physics or engineering 101 on ARM, but that’s a different thread.)

      • Coastal Ron

        Dark Blue Nine said:

        …then the Administration is to blame for never making the local argument about how their initiatives would maintain NASA employment by shifting workers from Program A to Programs X, Y, and Z.

        That is mainly where my frustration is at – a lack of public advocacy. And a lack of any public effort to develop the alternative plans to what Congress wanted for political reasons.

        If someone writes an inside scoop book, I hope that part is addressed.

        But considering where NASA was going before Obama, I think it’s in better shape. Not great shape, but better than when he took over.

      • Vladislaw

        Dark Blue Nine wrote:

        “then the Administration is to blame for never making the local argument about how their initiatives would maintain NASA employment by shifting workers from Program A to Programs X, Y, and Z. We never saw that kind of argument, commitment, or the workforce numbers to back it up when the Administration rolled out its Constellation replacement programs, “

        If the workforce for the shuttle was 200 million a month or 2.2 billion per year, and, utilizing FAR and the usual suspects, the big aerospace stakeholders, would there been enough left over for any real hardware even if they were shifted around?

        • Dark Blue Nine

          “If the workforce for the shuttle was 200 million a month or 2.2 billion per year, and, utilizing FAR and the usual suspects, the big aerospace stakeholders, would there been enough left over for any real hardware even if they were shifted around?”

          We may be talking past each other. The point is not to bypass or save bucks on the Shuttle workforce in an attempt to direct more NASA bucks at more efficient organizations (as theoretically desirable as that might be). The point is, as long as we’re stuck with the Shuttle workforce politically, let’s employ that workforce usefully, not wastefully.

          My point is that you stop the workforce from building Hardware A and redeploy it to build Hardware X, Y, and Z. The Shuttle workforce can build hardware. It’s just a question of whether you have them build stupid, inefficient, and duplicative hardware (e.g., HLLVs and big capsules that industry can build much more efficiently or that can be eliminated by other technologies like in-space prop mgmt and inflatables)? Or do you have them build stuff that no one else is building (transit stages, large or reusable lunar landers, prop depots, large Mars entry vehicles, etc.)?

          I don’t know if the Shuttle workforce is up to this first-of-a-kind hardware anymore. I don’t know that any organization is. But I’d rather have them failing on the pointy end of the deep space exploration spear, than on the much easier Earth-to-orbit stuff that other organizations can execute much more efficiently and effectively.

          (As an aside, the run-rate on SLS/MPCV is almost $3.0B/yr.. So in theory, using your numbers, there would be about $800M/yr. leftover from SLS/MPCV cancellation — even if the entire Shuttle workforce spent the rest of their careers doing crossword puzzles.)

          • Coastal Ron

            Dark Blue Nine said:

            I don’t know if the Shuttle workforce is up to this first-of-a-kind hardware anymore.

            Does the old Shuttle workforce have much involvement with the SLS and Orion/MPCV? I know the Constellation plan was to merge the two post Shuttle, but I don’t know if any significant numbers migrated over.

            Still, I think Boeing and Lockheed Martin have lots of capabilities, so I do agree with your overall point – stop building the MPCV, and start building something like the Nautilus-X (or a precusor), and stop building the SLS, and start building an EM-L1 station and refueling tankers (or however that works out through competition).

            Those were the types of choices I wished (and still do) we would have heard from NASA so far. What I call a vision with a small “v”, since it’s more oriented towards capabilities and not a specific destination.

      • Matt

        Dark Blue Nine: Agree with your 6 Aug 2:13 PM Post. The Administration would, IMHO, have had a lot more success with Congress if they had made clear that workforce issues would get very serious attention. And I agree: the shuttle (and Constellation) workforce could’ve been transitioned to areas in a new program where their talents could best be utilized, and both local communities and the contractors are still pleased that (a) people are still employed, and (b) businesses catering to those workers won’t be affected. Again: a failure to communicate here, and there’s blame from the top on down to go around on this. Whether it’s the President, Bolden, Garver, or Holdren (POTUS’ Science Advisor), PAOs, or what, Failure to communicate the Administration’s proposals to a skeptical Congress (even in 2010, when Democrats controlled Congress), and the public is something they still haven’t gotten around.

        • Coastal Ron

          Matt said:

          And I agree: the shuttle (and Constellation) workforce could’ve been transitioned to areas in a new program where their talents could best be utilized…

          Maybe, but it’s funny that you are criticizing Obama for being too capitalistic (i.e. let the market sort out the ups and downs in the job market), when Republicans claim he is the most socialist President we’ve ever had.

          …and both local communities and the contractors are still pleased that (a) people are still employed, and (b) businesses catering to those workers won’t be affected.

          And that could have been done without Congress designing their own rocket.

          Maybe the news came as a shock, and maybe it could have been “massaged” in the political way beforehand.

          But Congress was not going to stop the gravy train, and you keep ignoring that fact.

          Congress doesn’t care about space exploration, they care about the money that comes from NASA’s budget, and where it is spent. No amount of prior communication about the fate of a hideously over-budget program (i.e. Constellation) would have changed that.

    • Jim

      NASA will live on a CR for some time to come. Good for SLS and Orion, not so good for commercial crew.

      With Garver’s departure, Shelby will have his way.

      • Bob

        “NASA will live on a CR for some time to come. Good for SLS and Orion”

        Bzzzt. CR+sequester will underfund SLS/Orion by even more than today, causing it to fall behind schedule and increase the odds of cancellation in the next administration.

    • Scott Bass

      “Those who think that Garver and/or Bolden could have asked Congress nicely to change fifty years of porkery are delusional.”

      That’s exactly right and it is a major reason they failed so miserably, Leaders have to recognize the current status quo and skillfully and slowly change direction, sometimes even giving credit for ideas to the other side.

    • DCSCA

      “Garver’s achievement was to keep NewSpace on life support long enough that Congress couldn’t strangle it in the crib.” spins NewSpacer Stephen.

      Pfffft. It’s stillborn. And still not airborne. NewSpace has flown nobody, Stephen.

      Garver’s departure is a move in the right direction for America’s space program. NASA’s gain is ALPA’s loss.

  • Guest

    It was replaced by SLS, but at least SLS for all its faults isn’t the engineering disaster that Constellation was.

    It’s worse in its own special way, a badly engineered twenty years late National Launch System, when everybody knows that by the end of the decade everything will be fully reusable.

    She’s getting out just in time, trust me.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    I’m somewhat puzzled by all of these accolades for Garver, considering her actual record of non accomplishments. Her approach to commercial space was crony capitalism. She seemed to be confused about what direction America should take for space exploration, sometimes toeing the Obama party line about asteroids, sometime touting a return to the moon. She was too political when the occasion called for diplomacy and ineffectively political when the occasion called for intrigue. If the stories about her being the driving force behind the blowing up of Constellation and the enactment of the current muddle that passes for Obama space policy are true, then she leaves behind a mess of her own making at NASA that will take years to clean up. It would be best that she never be given another position of trust in any part of the nation’s space effort.

    • Vladislaw

      Her “crony capitalism” was cheaper to the taxpayer by a factor of ten versus the current crony capitalism for Lockheed and Boeing.

      • Jim

        Her “crony capitalism” was cheaper to the taxpayer by a factor of ten versus the current crony capitalism for Lockheed and Boeing.

        TBD. Not enough data points to determine if commercial crew can make it financially or not. So don’t count those chickens just yet.

        • Dark Blue Nine

          NASA’s own reports using NAFCOM costing models show that Falcon 9 cost a factor of at least 3x less than the alternative. Dragon, Antares, and Cygnus are also clearly breaking cost models compared to similar vehicles like Delta II and ATV/HTV. Vlad’s statement is true.

          On the demand side, there is clearly huge demand for the launcher outside NASA on the SpaceX manifest. Even if no commercial crew vehicle ever obtains a non-NASA customer, the launchers and capsules involved are already orders of magnitude less costly than Ares I and Orion were/are and have infinitely more non-human space flight customers. And it’s doubtful that commercial crew will never obtain a non-NASA customer, given Space Adventures’ demand for Soyuz seats at the same or higher prices.

    • Dark Blue Nine

      “commercial space was crony capitalism”

      Since Garver came on board, there have been three rounds of full and open commercial crew development competitions. A fourth is in the planning stages. By definition, open competition where the awardees are not known ahead of time is not cronyism. Only an idiot who doesn’t understand the definition of cronyism would argue otherwise.

      Multi-billion dollar, novated, sole-source awards in the absence of competition, as demanded in statute by the lawmakers whose reelection coffers are filled by the same awardees, is cronyism. Even more so when, three years into the programs, deliverable have yet to be definitized. The programs described are SLS and MPCV.

      “She was too political when the occasion called for diplomacy and ineffectively political when the occasion called for intrigue.”

      And those occasions were what? When?

      “If the stories about her being the driving force behind the blowing up of Constellation”

      Griffin blew Constellation’s technical margins, schedule, and budget long before Garver came along. It’s not Garver’s fault that Ares I ballooned to a $40 billion Rube Goldberg contraption with a first flight milestone that slipped a year for every year of its existence.

    • This is stupid. “Her approach to commercial space” was exactly the same as that under the previous administration.

    • DCSCA

      “I’m somewhat puzzled by all of these accolades for Garver, considering her actual record of non accomplishments… she leaves behind a mess of her own making at NASA that will take years to clean up. It would be best that she never be given another position of trust in any part of the nation’s space effort.” says Mark.

      Well said. Entire posting. Go back and review her professional history as a DC lobbyist. Speaks volumes. Garver has been bad for the nation’s space program since station days and her NSS/NSI stint. Good riddens.

  • Garver and the Obama administration should be fully credited for their strong support for utilizing NASA and tax payer resources to help develop a private commercial manned LEO launch capability in the United States.

    Unfortunately, the administration’s attempts to slow down and even cripple NASA’s beyond LEO capability has hurt NASA, US jobs in the aerospace industry, and, ironically, Commercial Crew development.

    The Obama administration inherited an $8.4 billion a year manned spaceflight related budget from the Bush Administration, plenty of money to fund NASA’s beyond LEO efforts plus Commercial Crew development. And Congress was poised to increase the manned spaceflight budget by at least a $1 billion (the Augustine Commission recommended a $3 billion increase).

    But the Obama Administration’s shocking hostility towards returning to the Moon and its attempt to stop NASA from developing a beyond LEO capability left a bitter taste in both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. So now we have a situation where both NASA’s beyond LEO development and its commercial crew development efforts are being underfunded. Thanks a lot President Obama!

    NASA needs to be focusing on establishing permanent outpost at the lunar poles so that those resources ice resources can be used to quickly establish permanent outpost on the surface of Mars.

    America needs a strong government manned space program and strong private commercial space programs– with their own private agendas. Both are mutually beneficial to each other and to the technological and economic future of the United States!

    Marcel F. Williams

    • Obama’s hostility?
      Not to innovative cost saving technologies and ways of doing things.

      Skip the moon for now and build the L1 station.

      The actual hostility is a US House that asks for the moon and then cuts funding all around to make it nothing but a jobs program on dear old mother earth with some moon launch sometime in the late 2020s or 2030s, maaaaaybe.

      GOP has made this fake Fed Financial situation by deliberately under-collecting taxes to force a Social Security reduction. That is all the Federal Deficit is about. NASA and DOD are what they’re willing to give up to cut the taxes of the wealthy and ultimately social security, the real GOP target in the Federal Deficit mess.

    • Coastal Ron

      Marcel F. Williams said:

      Unfortunately, the administration’s attempts to slow down and even cripple NASA’s beyond LEO capability…

      Explain what those capabilities are?

      Because besides unaffordable stuff that was single use and didn’t get us to someplace new, I don’t know of any.

      If anything, Obama’s initial NASA budget wanted to spend money developing the technology and techniques we’ll need to go beyond LEO, because we certainly don’t need an HLV at this point, since there is NOTHING that requires an HLV at this point – NASA can’t afford it.

      Why is it that all SLS supports could care less about taxpayer money?

      • Crash Davis

        Why is it that all SLS supports could care less about taxpayer money?

        Ron, are you an idiot? The word is supporters. Try and keep up with the English language.

        You obviously are shaken by the significant downturn NewSpace is experiencing. Garver, a NewSpace stooge, soon to be replaced by Lightfoot (from MSFC). Armadillo goes bankrupt, soon others will follow. Virgin Galactic unable to return to powered flight. ULA continuing to launch successfully and procuring a multitude of future missions….

        • Coastal Ron

          Crash Davis said:

          The word is supporters.

          And the subject is value. Try and keep up with the conversation.

          Care to describe how NASA is going to be able to keep the SLS busy for two decades? Because that’s the minimum we should expect from $30B+ of U.S. Taxpayer spending.

          You obviously are shaken by the significant downturn NewSpace is experiencing.

          What downturn?

          Commercial Cargo is getting ready to have it’s second provider certified this year. Congress is likely to increase the Commercial Crew funding over what it did last year.

          SpaceX is making great strides on reusability, Bigelow has a NASA contract to test on the ISS, and Blue Origin is visibly more active and indicating it plans to be a force for the long run.

          Shall I go on?

          Armadillo goes bankrupt, soon others will follow.

          Oh gee, horror of horrors.

          Are you not familiar with capitalism? Failures do happen, and in the free market the smart ones fail without taking in too much money ahead of time. John Carmack deserves a lot of credit for doing what he did. And notice that he placed a good amount of the blame at taking government work… that will only make NewSpace stronger.

          Oh, and he didn’t go bankrupt – as the sole/primary owner, he just stopped. “Hibernation mode” is what he called it.

          ULA continuing to launch successfully and procuring a multitude of future missions

          I think it’s good ULA can still get government business, especially when they charge as much as they do. But notice that they are not getting non-U.S. commercial business. That is where SpaceX is cleaning up, and next SpaceX will be going after U.S. Government business, which is ULA’s lifeblood.

          I think ULA makes nice hardware, but from the business side of things they are relying on the wrong business model.

      • Scott Bass

        SLS is all we have…. You either support it or you don’t ….. It’s not like we have something different to realistically choose from at this point…… In a state of drift still….

        • Coastal Ron

          Scott Bass said:

          SLS is all we have…

          Not true at all.

          The size of the SLS is arbitrary, and in many ways it’s actually too small for single-launch exploration missions in the future. Because in-space docking and assembly will be required no matter how big the launcher, existing and near-term launchers can satisfy our exploration hardware needs for the foreseeable future. And for far less money than the SLS.

          It’s not like we have something different to realistically choose from at this point

          The Future In-Space Operations (FISO) Working Group, which is comprised of people from NASA and the space industry, would disagree.

          Just take a look at the study called “Evolved Human Space Exploration Architectures Using Commercial Launch and Propellant Depots“, which shows that using existing and near-term commercial launchers cuts the cost of missions almost in half, which means they are more likely to get funded and actually launch (a lesson you should be learning from Constellation).

          According to their study an HLLV is the most expensive option at this point in time, and if SpaceX succeeds with any form of reusability, commercial will only get better.

          When using price as a metric, the SLS loses every time.

        • Dark Blue Nine

          “SLS is all we have…. You either support it or you don’t ….. It’s not like we have something different to realistically choose from at this point……”

          That’s a lie:

          70-ton EELV Phase 2 for $2.3B plus inflation
          http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/EELVPhase2_2010.pdf

          150-ton Super Heavy Falcon for $2.5B
          http://www.nss.org/articles/falconheavy.html

          2-man Lunar Return Architecture for $6.4B
          http://goldenspikecompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/French-et-al.-Architecture-Paper-in-AIAA-Journal-of-Spacecraft-and-Rockets.pdf

          2-man Mars Circumnavigation for $1-2B
          http://prezi.com/l_e_dbaj5z4a/inspiration-mars-presentation/

          • Scott Bass

            Y’all might have missed the gist of my statement…. It’s all we have because that is what were doing….. I don’t see us abandoning it, I suppose that’s another discussion though

            • Coastal Ron

              Scott Bass said:

              It’s all we have because that is what were doing

              The same could have been said about Constellation back in 2009.

              I don’t see us abandoning it, I suppose that’s another discussion though

              If we don’t we’re not going anywhere.

              But yes, that’s another discussion.

              • Scott Bass

                The start stop thing is wearing me out though, I would even have supported the asteroid mission if they had just stuck with it…. It bothers me that we will at least spend 7 years developing SLS while many here are either expecting or hoping for its demise….. At some point you have to stick to a plan or else your right, we won’t be going anywhere…. I guess you can tell I am a little frustrated

              • Coastal Ron

                Coastal Ron said:

                The start stop thing is wearing me out though, I would even have supported the asteroid mission if they had just stuck with it…

                Going anywhere without using the SLS is something I would support. I’m more concerned about HOW we do, then where.

                At some point you have to stick to a plan

                Maybe, but you have to have some reasonable chance for success, and with the SLS there is pretty much none. If it takes a slow death for Congress to release their stranglehold on NASA, so be it.

                The current situation we’re in is because the SLS and MPCV programs are concentrated in a few, well established congressional districts. That needs to change. We need to get to a point that no state or politicians district is so influential that it takes precedence over common sense. Not sure what decade that will happen, but I hope it does eventually happen.

              • At some point you have to stick to a plan or else your right, we won’t be going anywhere

                There is no point in sticking to a plan that’s doomed to fail.

    • “But the Obama Administration’s shocking hostility towards returning to the Moon and its attempt to stop NASA from developing a beyond LEO capability left a bitter taste in both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. So now we have a situation where both NASA’s beyond LEO development and its commercial crew development efforts are being underfunded. Thanks a lot President Obama!”

      What they were really opposed to was the huge cost.
      What’s needed to return to the Moon is smaller, not larger.

      Bob Clark

      • Matt

        When the President at the Cape in his 15 Apr 10 Speech said “Been there, done that” re: lunar exploration, that didn’t go well with a lot of folks. Had he said “We don’t just want to go to the moon, but go to other places,” would that have made things easier? Maybe. The rollout was not handled well, and there was no advance notice given to either members of Congress or Center directors-as the Senate hearings over FY 11 show. Even Bolden admitted that he blew the whole thing, and took responsibility. Ideally, what should’ve happened was a policy statement prior to the rollout, briefings to the key members of Congress-those on committees and those whose districts are most affected, maybe a Presidential speech before the rollout, then you release the budget. It was the reverse, and they’re still paying for it. If Garver was the responsible party for a lot of what went on, I wonder if she regretted it later? Failure to communicate has been the administration’s biggest problem on this issue.

        • Coastal Ron

          Matt said:

          Had he said “We don’t just want to go to the moon, but go to other places,” would that have made things easier? Maybe.

          Absolutely NO.

          Congress doesn’t care about the Moon.

          They only care about the money that comes out of NASA for their constituents.

          We’ve had the ability to go back to the Moon since the 70’s, but there is no reason to go back as part of some massive government program. Oh sure, it would be neat and all, but “science” and “history of the Earth” is not worth the $100B+ that it currently takes for a government program.

          As usual, your focus on the rollout of the message blinds you to the reality that it wouldn’t have mattered how it was presented to Congress, it was a threat to the constituents of certain congressional districts – and that was politically unacceptable, no matter how much notice they were given.

          Get over it.

          • Matt

            They blew it, Ron, and botched rollout, failure to communicate, and so on is no substitute for getting Congress on your side. In case you haven’t noticed, Congress is not a rubber stamp-is that what you were hoping for when that disaster known as FY 11 was rolled out? Well, it was under a Democratic majority at the time, and the reception that budget request-even the revised one, should’ve told the Administration-Garver included-that their proposals would have a very hard time winning Congressional approval. What else would you have expected from Congress? Even Sen. Bill Nelson, who was initially receptive after the space summit (read: choir meeting), got to be skeptical when Holdren, Bolden, et al testified. He was much more supportive when Gene Cernan, the late Neil Armstrong, and Norm Augustine were in front of the Senate. If the Administration had been willing to spend political capital while it could, maybe more of the FY 11 proposals might have made it. All that’s happened is that the original Obama campaign proposal of deferring CxP by 5 years to pay for “unspecified education programs” came true in another form. See here:

            http://web.archive.org/web/20080102204643/http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/PreK-12EducationFactSheet.pdf

            Said it before, Ron: the Moon is not THE destination. That is Mars. You’re missing the point of “Moon first”: The Moon should be the FIRST destination. Then some NEOs, then Mars vicinity (flyby, orbit, Moons), then the big enchilada: Martian surface.

            Answer this, Ron: how should the Administration have gotten Congressional support? You’ve got to get the pro-Constellation people on your side, address workforce concerns, and offer a definite strategy going forward (both human and robotic), if that’s what it takes to get Congress to approve not just the authorization act, but funding.

            • Coastal Ron

              Matt said:

              …is no substitute for getting Congress on your side.

              NASA is 0.5% of the national budget, and at that time we were deep in the worst recession in a couple of generations, and we were still involved in two wars.

              Plus, Congress cancels over-budget programs quite often, so it’s not like it’s something rare and unknown.

              Politicians are far less fragile than you think.

              The Moon should be the FIRST destination. Then some NEOs, then Mars vicinity (flyby, orbit, Moons), then the big enchilada: Martian surface.

              Why go to the Moon first?

              You have to have a reason, and the House just recently had testimony from Steve Squyres (the NASA Advisory Council Chairman) who said going to the Moon was not on the critical path for going to Mars.

              You’ve got to get the pro-Constellation people on your side…

              If you pay any attention to Space Politics conversations at all, you’d see that there is a wide gap between those that want a government-owned/operated HLV (with not much money left over for exploration hardware), and those that want NASA to use commercial launchers and use NASA’s budget for building exploration hardware.

              That gap exists in NASA too, and Boeing and Lockheed Martin have every incentive to use their political influence to push for an big ticket hardware programs, regardless how useful they are – that’s not their concern.

              Add into that the whole “reduce government” movement in Congress, and the lack of a real need to go anywhere, and I don’t see that there is ANY plan anyone could have put forward that would have excited Congress.

              And how many Republicans do you think are going to stand with Obama on a new space plan? If you think the number is more than zero, then you are delusional. Not in today’s political environment.

              • And how many Republicans do you think are going to stand with Obama on a new space plan?

                At least one — the Vice Chairman of the Science Committee.

              • Matt

                Ron, remember, the Democrats ran the Hill in ’10 when that botched rollout was made. You have to get the Congresscritters on your side, address their concerns-and not treat them with contempt or tell them off, and find a common way forward. This administration didn’t do that, and just assumed that any opposition would fade away. It didn’t. And Congress, as is their Constitutional prerogative, wrote their own authorization act for NASA. And POTUS didn’t fight it.

              • Coastal Ron

                Matt said:

                You have to get the Congresscritters on your side, address their concerns-and not treat them with contempt or tell them off, and find a common way forward.

                Look Matt, could Obama have wined and dine key congressional players ahead of time? Sure.

                However you keep forgetting the facts – Congress agreed to cancel Constellation, so apparently wining and dining keep congressional players wasn’t required.

                The only question is whether wining and dining key congressional players would have stopped Congress from mandating the SLS, and I don’t think so. Why?

                You keep forgetting the power of lobbyists. Boeing was the prime contractor on the Ares I upper stage, and angling to the be the prime on the Ares V. And in case you missed it, Boeing is now the prime contractor for the SLS.

                Now if you don’t think Boeing was lobbying in the background for the SLS, then you are being quite naive.

                If you don’t think Congress can get their way, regardless what the powerful people in the Administration want – regardless the amount of schmoozing they do – then you better ask Dick Cheney about his failure to cancel the V-22 program when he was the SecDef. Sometime Congress just doesn’t care, and that’s what I think the situation was with the SLS.

  • But the Obama Administration’s shocking hostility towards returning to the Moon and its attempt to stop NASA from developing a beyond LEO capability left a bitter taste in both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

    There was no “attempt to stop NASA from developing a beyond LEO capability.” There was only an attempt to get it to do so in a sensible way. It failed, because Congress would rather pretend to build a big unneeded rocket, with control over where the money goes.

    • Matt

      And how, pray tell, Rand, would you have gotten Congress on board? Remember that in 2010 when that FY 11 announcement was made, the Democrats still controlled the House. You have to get the Congresscritters on your side, address their concerns, and find a way forward. This Administration did none of that.

      • I don’t know of any way to do so, other than possibly reform of the committee system, since Congress actually doesn’t give a damn one way or the other. The only people who care are the people with major facilities in their states or districts. I didn’t claim to have a solution — I was just correcting the nonsense that the administration was trying to “stop NASA from developing a beyond LEO capability.” That’s simply stupid and ignorant.

        • Matt

          And good luck expecting Congress to reform itself…

          Rand, it was the perception that the Administration was against BEO missions that led to that. And the Administration did very little in the beginning to counter the perception. Not to mention the spin “If you’re for Commercial to LEO, you’re against NASA to BEO”, which Leroy Chao (ex-astronaut and a member of Augustine) was trying to counter. He mentioned it in an Orlando Sentinel article about a week after the rollout, ISTR.

          • Coastal Ron

            Matt said:

            it was the perception that the Administration was against BEO missions that led to that.

            What a ridiculous statement.

            If you look at what the President was proposing in the FY11 budget he submitted for NASA, it included the following:

            – Top line increase of $6.0 billion over 5-years

            – Transformative technology development and flagship technology demonstrations to pursue new approaches to space exploration

            – Robotic precursor missions to multiple destinations in the solar system

            – Research and development on heavy-lift and propulsion technologies

            – U. S. commercial spaceflight capabilities

            – Future launch capabilities, including work on modernizing Kennedy Space Center after the retirement of the Shuttle

            – Extension and increased utilization of the International Space Station

            And specifically:

            1. Technology demonstration program, $7.8 billion over five years.
            Funds the development and demonstration of technologies that reduce the cost and expand the capabilities of future exploration activities, including in-orbit refueling and storage.

            To say that the President was against BEO missions is ignorant of the facts. And considering that those that understand what kind of situation NASA is in right now say that “NASA’s technology cupboard is bare”, meaning even if by magic an HLV showed up ready to use today, NASA still needs lots of money and time to build the hardware that uses one.

            But that’s not going to happen, since Congress is too busy putting the cart before a horse that hasn’t even been born.

            Face it Matt, you are wrong on this. Time to move on.

            • Matt

              Ron, do you remember the articles and op-eds from that time? A lot of the reaction was very negative, very nasty, and this was coming from Democratic members of Congress (House and Senate), not just Republicans. Bolden got flayed alive when he went to the House and Senate committees after the rollout-and he didn’t do much better after the 15 Apr Space Summit (read: choir meeting). The Administration did very little to counter that perception at first, and even after the space summit and POTUS’ speech, there was still a lot of bipartisan reaction that was negative.

              Budget items are one thing. They are not a substitute for legitimate questions as to “where are we going to send our astronauts, when do we expect to fly missions BEO, and how are we going to do it.” The Administration’s biggest mistake wasn’t canceling CxP (though I feel it’s one of those), it was doing so without having an alternative program-even a bare-bones one that would be fleshed out with much more details later on-to offer in its place. Again: a failure to communicate, and faulty assumptions that Congress-still with a Democratic House at the time, would simply go along. At least Charlie Bolden had the guts to say it a week after the rollout: that he blew the presentation, didn’t listen to his PAOs, and he at least took the rap for it. Too bad Garver (and Dr. Holdren) didn’t.

              Again, Ron: Perception counts in a lot of things, politics being one, and informing the public another. The Administration did little to counter the perception of “outsourcing HSF to private contractors”, “abandoning leadership in space”, and so on. Their fault. Not those who disagree with them.

  • DCSCA

    “In a development that has surprised many in the space community, NASA Watch and Space News report that NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver will leave the space agency to take a position outside the space industry. ”

    Good news!!!! Long overdue.

    It shouldn’t be a ‘surprise’ to ‘many’ in the space industry (at least those in the know about her) at all- Garver has always been a lobbyist by trade and attitude, easily transferring those skills to another venue. And she is headed to a gig to employ those lobbying skills again in DC– which has always been her forte. Now the commerialists know why she was openly chiding Congressional ‘pork’ last week. She was already mentally out the door.

    This simply reaffirms that Garver lacked the commitment to the future of America’s space program. Puirging these ‘comericalists’ from the agency is a good move. Goodbye and good riddens.

    The damage to the space agency done by Garver can be traced back years into the station debate and her NSI/NSS lobbying days.

    More revealing is the statement issued by Bolden w/Holdren peering over his shoulder. Holdren’s meddling w/NASA remains a problem as well and the sooner he leaves this admistration, the better. Purging NASA of its the commercialist factions is essential to restoring the agency.

    “In whatever capacity Garver helped save the ISS, and get Commercial Crew going, that is a good legacy.” weeps Ron.

    Except it’s not. Garver’s legacy added years of free drift, placing short-term contracting over a long term commitment to the space program. She was operating outside the ares of her competence– and her commitment of space travel is weak. Garver’s legacy is one of poor decisions littered with the wreckage of wasted time. Mike Griffin is likely doing cartwheels.

    “Garver has been trying to undo a half-century of Congressional malfeasance. That can’t be done overnight.” says Stephen.

    this is just stupid. Garver has in fact, perpetuated it– made a living at it and will coninue to o so. You’d bet learn sometring about these people and their motives. Garver didn’t give a damn about spaceflgiht. Von Braun did– and his slight of hand in catagorizing a management skill from his budget-juggling days in Germany. Nothing new thre. But Von Braun was committed to space travel. Garver was not. Regarless of the obstacles, he remained committed to it. Von Braun didn’t quit. Garver did.

  • red

    She generally pushed in the right direction, which can’t be said in many cases. However, even if it was unrealistic to hope for an end to the waste of SLS/Orion, it would have been nice to have seen some more small victories, like the revival of a robotic precursor line for actual missions (even if funding only allowed an occasional LCROSS-sized one), some movement on propellant depot technology, a reversal in the decline of Centennial Challenges, an ISS micro-entry vehicle COTS-like partnership, or any number of similar possible and affordable efforts.

  • josh

    garver should have been administrator and bolden her deputy.

  • Aerospace Engineer

    “That’s one less hack for NASA, one giant hack for ALPA.”

  • I’ve known Lori Garver since the late 1980s when I was involved in the leadership of the L5 Society — one of the two groups that merged to become the National Space Society.

    I worked at NASA Goddard from 1990 to 1999 in a technical position at the supercomputer center.

    I am what is called a polymath. My first degree was in physics. In grad school I decided upon a career change. Into IT where I finally wound up? No. The first thing I tried was doing grad work in social psychology at Columbia. Along the way I became a photographic artist. To see my latest images, Google “chuck divine flickr”. Lots of people like them.

    In 2006 I became the leader of a committee on industry collaboration in aerospace as part of Maryland’s Governor’s Workforce Investment Board. We created a plan for a Maryland Aerospace Association. Industry decided not to fund it, alas.

    In 2007 Lori Garver invited me to a Hillary Clinton public policy breakfast. It cost me $1000 to get in.

    Based upon the work for GWIB and the public policy breakfast, I wrote a public policy paper I titled Aerospace Workforce Issues and sent it to Garver.

    No one ever replied to me. I gather I ticked off some people currently with power for saying some things they don’t want being discussed in public.

  • Daddy

    I must give Garver credit for political survival skills… But NASA used to be above political partisanship before she had to tie herself to Obama’s shirt tails. She is technically incompetent and a wrecking ball of a manager. It is merely a matter of months before the pilots figure out she can’t do them a bit of good bargaining with the airline industry. She will sell out to whichever company bids the highest for her allegiance. She’s obviously looking to score a lucrative retirement… More power to ya, Lori!!!

    Doesn’t anyone find it odd that she may have done more to promote commercial space than any other NASA personality, yet no one in the space industry wants anything to do with her???

    There was guarded giddiness across the agency today. The phrase, “The wicked witch is dead,” was repeated throughout the halls, test facilities, and launch pads of NASA. Bolden may not be able to repair the damage done by Garver’s flailing hatchet, but he can damn sure salvage a good portion of NASA’s spirit.

    • DCSCA

      “She is technically incompetent and a wrecking ball of a manager. It is merely a matter of months before the pilots figure out she can’t do them a bit of good bargaining with the airline industry. She will sell out to whichever company bids the highest for her allegiance. She’s obviously looking to score a lucrative retirement… ”

      Indeed. She’s a quitter up for sale to the highest bidder..

      “Bolden may not be able to repair the damage done by Garver’s flailing hatchet, but he can damn sure salvage a good portion of NASA’s spirit”

      Attaining the correct attitude is critical in spaceflight— on orbit– and on the ground as well. Jettisoning Garver is a move in the right direction.

      • Coastal Ron

        DCSCA mumbled:

        She’s a quitter up for sale to the highest bidder.

        She was Deputy Administrator for the 4th longest stint in NASA’s history, so you have no standing to say she is a quitter.

        As to going to work in the private sector, that is the normal direction people go after serving in government in a high-profile position. And considering the low pay she would have had as a government employee, it makes sense to take a better paying job.

        You lack real world experience to judge on this matter.

    • “Doesn’t anyone find it odd that she may have done more to promote commercial space than any other NASA personality, yet no one in the space industry wants anything to do with her???”

      Er, except for those involved in commercial space:

      “Lori made a real difference to the future of spaceflight,” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. “Lori has been one of the most important forces for supporting commercial space during the past decade. Her leadership has been critical to the entire commercial spaceflight industry,” said X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis.

      Her support of commercial space may have been off-putting to the old guard of the industry.

      Bob Clark

    • Guest

      Doesn’t anyone find it odd that she may have done more to promote commercial space than any other NASA personality, yet no one in the space industry wants anything to do with her???

      There was guarded giddiness across the agency today. The phrase, “The wicked witch is dead,” was repeated throughout the halls, test facilities, and launch pads of NASA. Bolden may not be able to repair the damage done by Garver’s flailing hatchet, but he can damn sure salvage a good portion of NASA’s spirit.

      Basically the entire external community is pulling their support of NASA with regards to the SLS, Orion and deep space human spaceflight, and you will be allowed to fail on your own, much quicker. Most people I know think that’s a much better deal for all.

    • Doesn’t anyone find it odd that she may have done more to promote commercial space than any other NASA personality, yet no one in the space industry wants anything to do with her???

      From what planet are you posting this? She is taking a job outside of the industry to avoid revolving-door conflict of interest, not because she can’t get a job in industry. After a suitable period, she’ll be back. I suspect that she’s hoping/waiting for a Hillary presidency…

  • Daddy

    Hillary as president…. Hmmmmm…. That makes about as much sense as a political scientist running NASA…. I guess stranger things could happen. But then I suspect Hillary has a little bit more sense than to put a political scientist back in charge of NASA and re-polarize what was an agency with bipartisan support.

    Oh, and Elon’s glowing words for Lori…..not worth a dime. He will abandon her, and has all but sung her swan song. She is of no use to him outside of NASA, and he is smart enough to know that she was nothing more than a ticket to government contract support and a conduit to Obama’s praise and attention. Not any more…

    Lori is gone. Bank on it. She will vanish quickly into the vapor of airline pilot bargaining unit oblivion. No technical competence. No political capital left after expending it wrecking NASA. The pilots will wonder why they hired her in just a few months and she will retire into the sunset.

    Lori, bless your Star Trek inspired visions. Too bad you couldn’t pass freshman physics.

    • Jim Nobles

      Garver was very helpful in NASA’s efforts to make itself relevant again and to some extent shake off some of the parasites who were sucking the agency dry. She didn’t do it all but she did a lot. I am grateful to her for that. Let’s face it, none of her detractors are people who ever going to be an asset to the American space effort anyway.

      I look forward to her return. We need more like her.

    • Guest

      Space is hard, and expensive, and dangerous, and will always be that way.

      Constellation was the way to go.

      • Coastal Ron

        Guest said:

        Constellation was the way to go.

        Wow!

        First you say Congress should spend more money on the SLS, then you advocated that the SLS was too expensive.

        Now you’re advocating that Constellation would have been less expensive?

        Good thing you’re writing papers and doing sims… ;-)

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