Book Review: "Escaping Gravity" By Lori Garver
Book Review: Escaping Gravity: “My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age” By Lori Garver
“Lori Garver has a new book out titled “Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age” which explains much of how space exploration and utilization is being done in the third decade of the 21st century. But how did we get here? She explains. She was there.
This past weekend commercial outfit SpaceX launched three successful Falcon 9 rockets in less than 36 hours. They all utilized previously used first stages that will be reused yet again. The two richest people on Earth are pouring billions of their own money into space companies while racing one another to various places across the solar system. Astronomers are now starting to complain that there will soon be so many satellites in the sky as to confuse people who look up to stargaze.
This did not just happen. It was not inevitable by any means. People had to put their jobs, reputations, fortunes, and family life on the line to help beat back the status quo inertia of government-only mindset. At the top of the list of those who pushed long and hard to reform the way NASA does things was Lori Garver.
The status quo that has held the true potential of space utilization back for decades is composed of Big Aerospace, companies entrenched self-interests in Congress, is tied to a series of constantly pivoting and disinterested White House teams – with an older male ruling class thwarting outsiders who try and change things. Did I miss anything?
One of the strange things Lori and other commercial space proponents had to navigate had to do with political re-polarization on the whole topic of space commerce. Whereas congressional Republicans had always held to their party’s core notion of the private sector being the best way to do things and that Big Government was ill-equipped to do so – and the opposite notion traditionally held by Democrats, that whole symmetry was upset.”
I’m glad Lori had the intelligence, foresight and courage to move the nation’s and the world’s space flight and space transportation industry forward. She was not the only one and she was not the first but many of us relegated to the sidelines were regularly and continuously subverted. Lori had pull with some in Democrat Administrations and to that she owes some of her success; the rest of us were apolitical and so we had no pull. Along with Lori we owe much of the recent success to the courage, capability and persistence of Elon Musk and Space X. The jury is still out on whether Bezos or some others will have a future role. One thing Lori’s book highlights is to be wary of many in the NASA management ranks now and in the recent past. They are guided by personal and political interests but are not supportive of the nation or industry.
And latest news – Congress voted to reduce funding for the Starship-based HLS, but NOT for the old-space SLS.
Although, in fairness, Starship can manage on reduced funding whilst SLS would struggle to even keep the lights on without huge budget increases, year-on-year, in perpetuity.