Off-Nominal - 66 - My Next One is “Fiction”

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Lori Garver, former NASA Deputy Administrator, champion of commercial spaceflight, and longtime space pirate, joins Jake and Anthony to discuss her upcoming book “Escaping Gravity” and to tell some stories from her incredible career.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 66 - My Next One is “Fiction” (with Lori Garver) - YouTubeEscaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age: Garver, Lori, Isaacson, Walter - Amazon.com: BooksEscaping Gravity by Lori Garver | Audiobook | Audible.comEast City Bookshop | Events Escaping Gravity Preorders (Signed Books)JSC Oral History ProjectT+205: Phil McAlister, Director of Commercial Spaceflight at NASA - Main Engine Cut OffBrooke Owens FellowshipMatthew Isakowitz Fellowship ProgramPatti Grace Smith FellowshipFollow LoriLori GarverLori Garver (@Lori_Garver) / TwitterFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterOff-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine start. We're here, Jake. Hello, everyone. I thought you were paying attention. We just talked about you doing the intro and you looked like you were not paying attention. I had a momentary panic attack because I didn't know if I had my bottle opener for my beer. Like the second I said yes and I was like, uh-oh, am I in trouble? Are I going to not be able to open this beer?

But I do. I have it. I'm good. We're ready to go. This is a long-awaited episode of Off-Nobinal Jake because our guest, the esteemed Lori Garber, has been on our list, probably longer than anyone has been on our list of people we should definitely get on the show at some point. Guaranteed a day one list when we got together and said, let's do this weird show. Who should we have on it?

And then we made a short list. And Lori, I'm pretty sure you were on that list on the first day. So welcome at last off nominal. Glad to have you here. Thank you. It's great to be here. What year was that? This is going to get embarrassing because you can now tell how slow we are at doing guest outreach.

Yeah, yeah. 2017, I think we started this, Anthony, is that about right? It was probably 2018 when we started making a list. Maybe, yeah, maybe, yeah. Something like that. Wasn't that much. We had to get some credit first.

That's the thing. Yeah, we had to get some credit first. Yeah, we couldn't come out of the gate with you. Well, you know, I could say I was busy, but I didn't get the invitation until I responded right away. You did, yes, yes. Thank you for that. We really appreciate that.

And this open honesty is exactly why we are having you here on the show today for your upcoming. Well, we're like halfway through a release of your book, right? The audio book is out, but all the other versions of the book are coming out next week, escaping gravity, which we'll be talking about in a second. But we need to talk about what we're drinking first, and we notice that you have come prepared. So what do you have over there? Well, thankfully, I did read your imitation. I just learn right away.

I'm not a big drinker. And I was thrilled to know that I could start at 4 o'clock, but you won't see me drinking too much. I have a glass of white wine, a light Sauvignon Blanc. It's cheap. I do not. I'm not a wine snob. However, my glass is what you come for.

Someone made this for me and it says queen on it, and it has all these crowns. and it is gorgeous and it was showed up on my desk at NASA one day. That was not in the book. So would you say, no. So would you say that you don't mind just buying like a glass, like a bottle of wine off the shelf, you don't need like a special bespoke one that's been government designer. I only have one requirement for my white wine and that is to have a screw top because I only drink a little at a time.

Okay. All right. And you also don't want to get stuck like me. I'm not going to be your average bro beer drinking guest. No. That was a shout out to Brian Whedon, I guess, who we were talking about before this. Yeah. Yeah. Jake, what did you go to the beer company or did you make something fancy? I went to the beer company, which is the beer store by my house. So I got, I have a, it's a brewery from, actually, I might have had this, I can't even remember now. There are so many beers. But this is from, Ensenada, Baja California. So this is Perro del Mar. It's an India pale ale.

And then I also have the red ale, which is Harry Palanco. Yeah. Look at the art on those. Yeah, they're great little labels. I kind of like them. So I thought I would get the shot. And they actually have, you know, in terms of craft beer in Mexico, this is a pretty good one.

So I wanted to have a nice one that I didn't surprise me today. So we're going to give this a shot today. I found, I did the impossible, Jake, in my local. Philadelphia craft beer store. I found a space-themed beer that they never have space-themed beer here in Philadelphia for a reason. But this one's called Orbital Elevator, a concept which I thoroughly do not believe in, but I will drink this beer happily. And it's a very nice-looking label. So got a space beer. And that's the intro of the show, I guess. Lorry, to start, it's a question I was wondering the whole time as I was reading this book. Did you specifically set out

to write the spiciest book of all time, or is that just a natural inclination that you have as a very honest person? We're coming out of the gates today. Hi, you know, I didn't start out to write the spiciest book, and I would argue I could write a much spicy book. I have said that if I do another one, it will be fiction because I can go even deeper

into some of those stories that I have. But yes, I am known for my honesty and my willingness to be direct, which some people thrive under, you know, I've had lots of employees who, gosh, stayed with me for years, went with me to the next company, you know, but there are those who find it off-putting. So to each his own. And I guess I'm glad you found it spicy because that's good for sales, of course. And there are a few stories in there. I'm super interested in what you think is the spiciest. Oh, wow. I didn't make a spicy rating.

Did you make a spicy rating? I mean, I think, so I have been following your career for a while. So I wasn't like completely unaware of the persona that you have. have all those things you just mentioned. So like I was I was ready for some interesting stories. But I don't know, I was really kind of like refreshed by how honestly you approach your relationship with lots of different people in this story who are not like, you know, people of the very distant paths. There are still very much figures in the space world. You know, if not more so. If not more so. Specifically about, you know, Bill Nelson or Charlie Bold

And there was some really interesting sort of honest takes on your relationship with them. So I found that very interesting. And maybe you can talk about sort of is that just your personality or did you have sort of a reason you really wanted to be fresh with those stories? Well, if you get all the way to the end and the author's note, I say in there, you know, if I could have told this story without saying anything negative about anyone, especially hero astronauts and so forth, I would have. but that's not the story.

The whole way that you have to make change in government is you have to take into consideration the vested interests and the people protecting the programs that we already have. That doesn't make them bad people. They are products of a system that has elevated them for so many years. I think what they're doing is the right thing. And we really had honest disagreements. We had open relationships. I think Charlie and I, especially our relationship in their outlines,

as much as I felt, I should say, without overstepping what he's already said. You know, one of the interesting things is it's mostly quotes. He has talked about a relationship much more than I have, but no one, because he's a man and he was my boss, people think about, well, he's allowed to say those things about her. But when I say them, oh, my goodness, it becomes much more controversial. So I tried to just use what he said. And then I found in my research this incredible resource that NASA pays your tax dollars for

that they call this Johnson Space Center oral research project. And it's some contractors. it's some contractors who clearly are making money pushing their own agenda and they go and interview. They're not spending any of the money on this website, by the way, because this is like straight out from the 90s. You've had the long screenshot because I fear when the book comes out, they're going to start taking this stuff down. I mean, it was just a treasure trove of quotes about me and how horrible I am. I mean, for people to say, the head of Johnson Space Center, Mike Coates, I had zero experience. You know, it's like, hmm, oh, okay.

Really, I, these, this story told itself. These were not things I set out to do when I started writing the book. Bill Nelson was certainly not the head of NASA. I don't even think he was a senator anymore. But this is what happened. And the fact that the people now who are taking credit for the commercial crew program were the very people who we had to wrestle it from, you know, they could, they barely failed to kill it. So, okay, I give them credit. I mean, that's why this book lands differently three years ago.

you know it's that's it's not so much that like it's spicy because oh lorry shouldn't be saying these things it's spicy because like it's specifically the first chapter or two is like here's a list of things that i was entirely right about and there was a subset of the industry that knew it at the time and it just took time to prove that and now everyone's changed their tune on it but that's why it's important because like the worst thing for the world is if no one ever changes their opinion and the best thing for the world is for everyone to air exactly how we got to where we are today so that we can learn from that in the past. And so you were talking about the battles that you fought with the people that are there today

saying how great of a industry we have at the moment, like knowing that they were members of the people or members of the group fighting against that, it's important to realize like, oh, we've proven that this is the right way by sheer effort from like thousands of people in the industry. And now that's being recognized at a larger scale. Yes. but I hope the message that comes across is less that, oh, gosh, I was right there wrong. It's that if you know something and you're trying to make change and the status quo disagrees with you, it's okay.

You know, don't just stop. People will come around and NASA has come around brilliantly. I talk about this, you know, the incredible embrace of SpaceX that NASA has today as represented. by my logo story, you know, in the book, how we wouldn't put any logos on before, and then NASA's got a little large. Now we can't put enough on there, yeah. Yeah, so it is really that changing government,

yeah, is so challenging. It takes someone really with an outside perspective and somebody who hasn't grown up in the system to come in and be sort of that antagonist, which I was, was and I was painted to be. And so I thought this story had a broader implication. I knew after I left NASA that it needed to be written primarily because a bunch of

journalists said, can we have your notes? We want to write this story. And I was like, maybe I'll write it myself. Huh. I'm curious, like, do you think that there is a way that this could have played out, you know, in the way that it had? could we have had this transformation at NASA without someone like you who like the two the two key things that stuff to me about you that made this possible was a like you just said being able to

you know stand up to a status quo and and dig your heels in and stick to your guns but also that sort of willingness to I don't want to say burn bridges but like you you know like you're you put the the the goals before yourself you that's what I kind of took from this, as you said, this is more important than me. And if it comes at any kind of cost to my personal reputation or my job or whatever, that's okay because it's that important, right? Do you think there's a way that this could have happened without someone like you that did that kind of thing?

Or is the sort of disruptor the only way out of that? I used to think that this would be something so obvious that it wouldn't have required a disruptor. But my short immediate answer would be it requires. a disruptor. Dan Golden tried to do this in the 1990s and when I was at NASA I think yeah there was pushback to having the follow on the shuttle be developed by the private sector but make no mistake a lot of people a lot of things had to come together at the right time we needed technology to develop X33 you know had a lot of shortcomings we needed the markets to develop and we needed

of course, these very rich people, it turned out, we need the financial backing. So the policies were sort of, I thought, not going to be the hard part. They ended up being the hard part. And that was surprising. But I try to go out of my way to say this wouldn't have happened without a lot of people. And certainly, SpaceX. Right now they are still the only ones actually doing this. and I give them all the credit.

But I am willing to accept credit and the book was a little cathartic to write because like, wow, I really, I had to do what I did. Otherwise, NASA hadn't requested the money for a commercial crew. Even after we got money and stimulus, they just wanted to do the same thing. And so it took someone and I had to go around,

the administrator's back because he opposed it. And then I think the Hill really was dragging their feet for so long they thought they might kill it. That probably would have been successful without SpaceX. But, yeah, unfortunately, it took somebody willing to risk their career over it. And, I mean, I don't know what it is. I don't know why people care so much to stay in a single position for so long. There's tons of great things to do out there. You know, members of Congress want to stay forever.

I've had a couple shifts in my career. And every time it just causes you to learn more and there's more to be done. It's not a big deal. People are on corporate boards who didn't agree with the stuff that ended up succeeding. and I'm not asked to be on those boards because I'm a lightning round or whatever. But it was not why I did it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that notion might illustrate the difference between the personalities, right?

So willing to change it up and be different and try any things versus keeping the exact same job and the exact same projects forever and ever and ever. That's a deeper seated thing. The hidden allegory there is it's not that hidden, I guess. Lori, there's a debate that Jake and I have had. I don't know that we disagree about it, but we've often had this debate amongst ourselves or other guests we have on of do NASA administrators matter? And this is a thing that we've talked about through several different administrations now,

right? And contextually, right, the congressional wrangling that has happened in the last 20 years, I think makes this a big debate. And a lot of the portion of your book where you're talking about your time as deputy administrator is about how, you know, in many different instances, Charlie Bolden was not willing to, or didn't necessarily know the inherent value of the programs that the administration at the time was tasked with

and that you were pushing for. Is it, it's unclear to me exactly how it would have been different if you had an administrator there that did understand that value, would go to bat for it. How did that, how would that affect the tactical side of going to Congress and fighting the same fight that you had to do, you know, down ahead? hand or two that would have been really helpful, I'm sure. But how would that have affected the tactics

and the outcomes of that? Well, so in my view, the NASA administrator not only matters, it is in some cases the only thing that matters. I have worked for two NASA administrators, and Dan Golden was administrator for 10 years, three presidents. He used the role to make dramatic, meaningful change. He communicated with the Hill in a way that built trust. He won over the White House by aligning NASA with the values of that administration and how to best serve the country. That's what I thought the job was. I think Jim Webb also did that. The NASA administrator is such a unique role. It has more influence, in my view, than cabinet members. And the reason is, it's not in the cabinet and it doesn't have to fit into a little box. Every single president since we've been

able to go to space supports NASA. I mean, you can get partisan and split hairs, but I've never met a president on that like five of them that didn't light up when you talked about having worked at NASA and what we're doing in space. It's just inherent in leadership. These are people who want to lead the country. And every one of them wants to make this better for America. Use NASA in any way you can to bring glory and money and security to our country. So if the administrator of NASA is doing that and delivering on it, you have their support.

We weren't doing that. We were an embarrassment sometimes. to the president. That's not good. That's not good. We, of course, in a community, always want more money. And so the administrator needs to show both internal communities as well as political constituencies the value of what we do. I tell a little story in the book that I'm not, I'm not sure why this resonates with me other than I'm a parent. But, you know, your kids spend money you give them. And if they don't spend it well, do you really want to give them more money? But, you know, when my kids are spending their money in a way that I think is of value,

I'm like, yeah, I'm going to put some more money on your account. That's how NASA is. And we have more control than we're willing to admit probably even to ourselves. I don't think this is a debate. The NASA administrator, and in particular during our time, oh my gosh, you would have won over Congress before our budget even came out. On day one, you would have had everyone saying why this is brilliant. You would have had NASA working on studies that showed the economic value of doing this. You would have had NASA working on studies that showed the problems, not that consolation was best.

bad because the people weren't doing the right thing. It was because of how it was structured. You have, well, we had 18 billion. Now you have 25 billion. You can use that to benefit society. And I mean, it's super powerful if you have the right skills. And I, you know, we've had various levels of that. Okay, so let me follow on with that then.

So that, I think what your argument tells to me is that it is a place where there is a potential of great change. But if it depends on, and maybe this is true for all political positions, but like does it depend on having a great person in there? Because if so, then that doesn't, that doesn't necessarily make the argument that the administrator matters. It makes the argument that having good people matters, right? Picking the administrator matters. Yeah. So, so let me frame the question a different way then. So, you know, you told some great stories in this book about how there was an alignment between you and the president on policies.

You know, so Obama and you had the same idea, but, but the administrator, Charlie Bolton, was not either didn't understand or didn't want to do it that way or whatever. And there was this misalignment. And it would have been super beneficial for you to have, you know, Obama go to bat for a lot of your stuff and do more than, you know, that one speech he was able to do or whatever. So to me, there's also this idea of like, how much time does the NASA administrator get from the president? Because as you mentioned, the administrator is not a cabinet secretary, right? And the president has a lot of very important work to do. Just like you said that they had that speech in on the way I think Obama had to give the green light on getting bin Laden. And that's all happening at the same time.

And so, you know, like that's a great example of how divided a president's attention is. So my question is, would the NASA administrator, over the long run, individual agnostic, be more effective if it reported to a cabinet secretary and there was someone who could, like, you know, be an intermediary between NASA and the president? Would that help in that you'd have a secretary going about with you and running things up flagpole that are important and blocking it when it's not? And I don't know, I've always found it kind of interesting how the NASA administrator straight lines right to the president. Yeah, it's super interesting and in a lot of ways, I guess my view as straight line the president as the way to go. You're head of NASA. When you say that, anyone will take a meeting with you.

If you need somebody at Department of Transportation, Secretary of Transportation will meet with you. If you technically direct report, but you really sort of go through the president's science advisor. worked hand and glove with OSTP and Holdren carried our water to the president because he was meeting with him much more often. But if Charlie had wanted to, he could have done that much more. The thing was, they weren't going to have him do that because nobody knew what he was going to say and what he wanted. Like if you're all in lockstep and you're working, you're working with the cabinet sector. I was lucky that I had this deputies council.

And the deputies sort of developed policies. So we had a lot of strong deputies. And so I had my own little group when I needed something done. And when it came to the NASA space policies, they would be on board because I'd worked those relationships. The administrator can be working any relationship they want. And you should be doing that instead of, you know, all of these are my friends and this going.

hang out with you know they um this is this is a unique thing about the agency and the job any you are just not going to get anyone who says oh gosh NASA that's why do I want to me why do I want to do that they don't that's a great point yeah nobody would decline that meeting invite you mentioned um that you know talking about the budget that there is a lot of flexibility that you have within, you know, $25 billion budget now. And I think a lot of times the community at large gets maybe the overly fixated on certain aspects where, like, Congress has written into law that Europa Clipper has to fly on SLS or that SLS has to be built with shuttle parts.

And we get fixated on these times when Congress has been very prescriptive. But a good example to maybe, maybe this is a good example from the outside, but maybe you have a different perspective from the inside. previous administration under Jim Brinstein, they were doing next-step contracts out the wazoo to push the Artemis program, which isn't even a program, to push that forward in any way possible, right?

Getting a couple million here for lunar landers or habitation or spacesuits or all these different things. I mean, even so far as commercial lunar payload services, like small programs that fly under the radar that don't necessarily need to go to Congress and ask for $5 billion a year and get this like top line item in the budget. Is that the kind of thing that you're talking about?

That like you have the ability to create these little programs that can fit into other line items that you're given? What is the actual flexibility there that you're harping on? Because it feels like that's the right path to generate momentum at least. You know, that is a part of it. And I think Jim was someone who used that very effectively having come from Congress. Sean O'Keefe was another person. You know, we say we don't want Ness involved in politics, but we're taking the public's money, and that's, you know, in our Constitution, how it works.

So use it. And people who bring that to the table, again, if you are doing a good job, they're not going to be micromanaging you. And I was, oh, it was torture just this mother may I. That was constantly our thing, well, we can't do that. Let's ask the hell. Don't, no, no. I mean, Jim just would do it. I was so jealous seeing his leadership there.

You know, I would get told, oh, you can't name a program, Artemis. Artemis kills Orion in one Greek mythology tale. Like, are you kidding me? I don't think Jim got that pushback. Probably not, no. You probably didn't give the opportunity for it. Right. They kept talking and started crying about, you know, what the potential is.

He cried enough during those impassioned speeches that people were distracted, I think. Well, so there definitely is a double standard there had I been crying as much as Charlie or Gem. They would have locked me out. But I think it is more about gaining trust and doing things in a transparent way. doing things of actual value. You know, this matters. Back to the allowance analogy. And NASA hasn't had a great record in a few things.

And we got off to a bad start, and it's harder to get out of a hole than it is, you know, to really bring someone along with you if they feel they're part of your quest. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. So one of the lines, I wrote one line down as I was reading that I definitely had to bring up, and it's related to that because this is the one that really stuck out to me.

So you did this thing in Russia early on in 2000s where you were prepping to go to space. So you almost had a ride to space. And as you said, not surprisingly, the qualifications required to be a policy analyst don't necessarily translate to having the physiological stamina and aptitude for spaceflight. you're talking about the zero G or the, you know, the high G spin stuff and all centrifuge stuff, all that kind of stuff. And then this line is like so perfect. The reverse is obviously also true, but rarely considered.

So I laughed so hard when I read. I had to put the book down and like walk around for a little bit and kind of think about that one because it was interesting. So yeah, we've had this discussion a lot. You know, do we want a politician in NASA? And I think I agree with you. Like it's crazy to not want that as if the NASA administrator isn't a politician role. Like, its Senate confirmed is absolutely a politician's job, right? It's

silly to think that it isn't in any way. There are also people who want to pull it out from being presidentially appointed, you know, have it be something more like a term position. And again, I feel like your access to the president is based on your ability to bring them wins. And NASA has the ability, if you're doing things right, to bring them wins that, by the way, are wins for the country. The congressional problems are part of the system. They need to bring back pork to their districts. Fair enough. They're going to fight for that.

That's their job. And the companies, by the way, are going to fight for their shareholders. But presidents can lift up their gaze. And NASA is one of those tools for the entire nation and planet. So you really do want and need presidential leadership. And in my view, what we should be doing is communicating more about what the individual members of Congress or companies are doing that are hurting the program.

That's the only way to get them to stop. You know, they don't have any pain from it because we're all just feeding it within the community. But as we're doing more important things, like we did in Apollo, when we were tied to the most important thing the nation thought we needed to do, you know, beat back the communism. Then you had people willing to vote for NASA increases beyond just their congressional states where the work was done.

And I think a lack of that overall meaningful vision has been the problem. You mentioned in the book one particularly intense, maybe is the wrong word for it. I don't know, meeting with Bill Nelson in which he yelled to get your boy Elon in line. And this was during the very early days of trying to convince everybody that this is the right path. In that case, right, I think if you're somebody who like us saw the vision that you had for the way the space industry could go, it's a pretty easy story to tell Bill Nelson about how this will be beneficial for Florida in the long run. If you were to take a snapshot of right now, throw VR goggles on them and show them 2022 Florida space industry, probably would be thrilled with the way that this space coast has been revitalized.

And that's evident, right, when you think about, well, yeah, all this expertise that is in the shuttle program is not just going to disappear and everyone's going to go get a job doing something else entirely. there's going to be this entrepreneurial spirit that's going to pick up the pieces of this industry and reconfigure them in a way that fits their vision in the long run. And, you know, I would love to hear about how you were going at fighting those battles of trying to get people with those parochial interests to understand the way of the future. And if there was anyone else there that had the inverse, that saw the future of what this could do for their district that was wrapped up in the space industry now and was moving in direction, or maybe wasn't in the space industry like Silicon Valley as much that is now very heavily in the space industry.

Were there any good examples that you had there? Sure. Yeah. I really thought this story would tell itself. I thought it would be more clear than was obvious early. And I do think that was a messaging issue on NASA's part. and part of that, a major part was that our agency lead didn't have it. He had a very, very strong, close relationship with Senator Nelson. And I don't really know how much they communicated on that, but it was not something I could get in the middle of. I can tell you that.

And I really thought that we would have Senator Nelson. First of all, the president had already done his bidding for the NASA administrator. And so, okay, I kept saying, they can't you, like, just tell him you've already done what you might, you know. But this, to the question on whether or not there were other people who saw it, I remember Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio right away, just loved it. And he was so excited. He goes, all NASA ever cared about before was those southern centers. And we here in Ohio were doing all this tech stuff,

we're doing it. And they were so excited. Ames was so excited. The whole California delegation was enthused. But you know what? The Senate is a very collegial place. And Senator Nelson and Senator McCulski especially, they worked it hard.

They worked it hard. And people don't want to go up against individuals who wake up every single day thinking about one issue. And almost no one other than those two in Congress do that. So Senator McColsky, they got her right away, even though during the transition, I had talked to her and her staff about, hey, consolation is having all these problems. maybe you guys should lead a study. In talking on the House side, even Congressman Giffords and Congressman Malahan, who was head of appropriations at the time,

my, I'm so bummed that what I didn't get them to do, I'd asked and they just waited, was maybe they should start a review of human spaceflight, you know, during transition, because it was so clear the shuttle was retiring, we don't have a replacement, constellations off track. And if they'd done it themselves,

they would have had to get on board. So this is the kind of thing that I feel like a NASA administrator could have easily gotten that to happen. I mean, I did work for Charlie. I always say, people say you work for the president. Well, sure. The president appointed me, and I know Charlie at least one or two times asked if that could change if he could have a different deputy, and he was told no.

So he couldn't hire and fire me. but every single day, I worked for him. And I couldn't just do something that he was against. And I couldn't start something that he didn't want. And he didn't want change. And I actually don't know, as I say in the book, how much of that was him versus just who he was listening to. But it was like me saying, yeah, the cup boys.

Me saying I, anyone saying you have an agenda. It's like, well, don't you? I mean, I think having an agenda is okay. Are you an innocent bystander running NASA? Sorry. I prefer my NASA leadership to have agendas, yes. Generally is a good thing. Mike Bloomberg, the mayor, I'm big name dropper.

And, of course, I have the ability to do that in the book, but Mike Bloomberg, I took the four, the last astronaut crew up to New York for Kobe and some stuff and we had dinner with Mike Bloomberg. This story actually got cut from the book for some unknown reason. And he told me, he said, you know, people like to know where you stand as a leader. They'd rather disagree with your stand than not know where you stand. And I believe that. And this is like leadership of companies, organizations. Today we have a little situation with Elon where I think, you know, we, this is yet to play out. I can't believe we are halfway through and haven't talked about Elon, but, you know, people know where he stands.

Yeah. Well, at least on that day we do. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, yeah, I don't know. We might need a whole other podcast for Elon if we really wanted to get into. Yeah.

I like all the other topics I have on this list. Yeah. Plus, it's not a topic where I really have a lot of expertise, right? So, I mean, this stuff you're asking me, I love to talk about things. There are very few things I know more about than anyone else, but this is, we're talking about. Hence the list of things. We're not like, we've got to get L'Oreal to talk about Elon Musk, because that was never going to be the show that we do here. No, no.

If we were going to talk about one human that you talked about in the book a couple times, I don't really have a lot on this topic other than I wrote down this person's name because I recently have fallen in love with Phil McAllister. I had him on my other podcast recently, and I had a total crush on him. And you mentioned him many times. And I'm wondering if you, I don't know if you've kept tabs with him, but, you know, the wing of NASA that he's taken on now, he's moving on through the program that you have, you know, you were instrumental in in the early days from cargo to crew to the destination's side of, you know, the future of NASA. and I'm curious how you find how he's navigating the political waters at the moment. If there's any lessons learned that you would pass on to the new end of NASA here with, you know, free-flying space stations and what's next for low Earth orbit human spaceflight.

Well, you know, luckily one of the things that I came to with NASA in 2008 leading the transition team was some relationships with people like Phil that had already dated a couple of decades. and you always need to know who you can trust. And as I said, this took a lot of people. Phil is right up there near the top. He ran the day-to-day relationship with NASA and the transition team, for instance. So we had access to him from the beginning. But I had known him in his consulting career years before.

And when he'd gotten a job at NASA, he'd called and asked if he should even do it and I had encouraged him. Boy, was I ever glad he took that advice. It wouldn't be possible without him. He managed to survive, but there were a few saves I had to make. He knows about those because, you know, he wasn't. Because I confirmed. And there were people who didn't like the program, and he could have been swept out with that. Was he doing Lori's bidding? Was that how it was played internally? Well, I know people felt that way.

Did he have an agenda? But the truth is, do you have any what? An agenda? Yes. And he was so right with his agenda. Yeah, I'm here for Phil's agenda. Like, count me in on that. But I'll just say this about that.

Here's a guy who Bill Gerstenmeier would have fired if he could have for being supportive of SpaceX. And Phil is still doing the work at NASA for a civil servant salary. So it's a little bit ironic. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's maybe one of the most interesting conclusions to the story when you think about that. Because even the stories you tell about Bill Gerson Meyer, about how, you know, that didn't want to do it at all, wanted to sign the one contractor and Mishmakit Boeing and how disappointed he was when the decision was made.

Like, that's still wild to me to think about that and how he is now working there to do that. That's the very thing he wasn't into, right? That's wild. But, you know, like you said, change, change is good. And the fact I could see SpaceX winning him over by their sheer competence. And you've got to give Bill credit, Mike Sufferdini credit. This would not have happened without them. And in a weird way, if you game this out, it might have been better that they were skeptics at first,

because when they came on board, that brought more people with them. Yeah, totally. And I feel like had I had them, just Bill, from the beginning, he would have brought on Charlie. Charlie trusted them and they would have gone to Nelson. And it was really the staff on the Hill that was hearing from ATK and Lockheed and Boeing Week and do all this so much better. And space life has never flown anything, you know. But a technically credible person, which I was not, was. What I needed.

None of your resume had led me to think technically credible. Yeah, for sure. Nothing in there. Nothing. It turns out the deputy minister of NASA does not turn any bolts. Had an agenda. It wasn't technically credible. Got to get her out.

I really, yeah, I love thinking about that idea of sort of like the skeptics slowly converting. And I hope it's happening more. I was thinking the other day because there was a tweet, I don't know, it was like from the NASA Artemis account or something. And it was like a bunch of the human landing system project managers went down to Starbase and they were looking around. There was pictures of them and they were just, you know, they're looking like this at all the different things.

And I'm just, and I was just thinking, I'm like, are we just like literally watching someone change religion right now? Because even if you, if you're like the biggest SpaceX skeptic, and there's still tons of that in NASA right now. They're putting out like, you know, I always laugh when they put out a, a render.

Yeah, this is the tweet. They put out like a render of like, you know, of the Artemis base camp or something. And they'll, they'll show a lander. And it's like some reference design lander. They won't show the SpaceX one, right? It still happens like today. And I really wonder if we're just like seeing one by one people like that are just like, just changing religions.

And they go back to Marshall after. that and they get into their office and they're thinking about it and it's like that's that's like the yeah those are the little sparks of change you have to wait actually ever i forget what the exact quote is but there's there's a quote about like is your movement trying to find converts or trying to find heretics and and like you know saying are you trying to build in a direction or you're trying to tear down a direction and i feel like that's what the progress of the last 10 years has been is you know it's hard to deny visible momentum And that's all we've seen, especially the last five years, has been accelerating even more so.

But, you know, DM2 and then all of the crew flights from there, and all of a sudden we're flying as frequently as shuttle did. It's, it's, you can't fight against that forever. But, you know, I don't think, I mean, Starship's going to have to fly for people to really see that. That's what happened with Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Dragon. and really quite close until when they flew, lots of people told me, SpaceX will never fly anything. It will never get off the ground.

You know, like literally these are astronauts, and they're saying this. So until Starship is flying, people are going to say that. And it's even hard to describe. I tried to in the book, you know, people complain these things are crashing. Like they're only crashing because they're trying to bring them back. Nothing we ever have launched that way has come back that way.

Like, so yours crash just a little higher. Every Atlas 5 has crashed into the ocean. 100% failure rate. But people don't call them on it. People do not call them on it. Again, we like to be in this cozy community. And that is one of the things about space, the space club, as I refer to them a little in the book that we need to break out of.

It's okay to have a difference of opinion. Diversity is one of the things that makes us strong in nature and in teams. And I think NASA's heritage is to debate technical topics. You know, I have this masters in space policy. And you see the debates over lunar orbit versus Earth orbit rendezvous. and things. It's very, that's our history. We should be doing it. We should be doing it. And yet, I wanted, I wanted to, to imagine that even once we got the money and we're told we had to do a government own and operated heavy lift, like, well, let's talk

about how we could do this in a way that is sustainable. And there were all kinds of studies that just dismissed using another technology, using orbital refueling. We built the space station so we know we can do this, build things on orbit. That was so obvious to me,

but nobody wanted to debate it. To actual history and the laws of physics. Yeah, that's a thing that happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's one of the things that really like gets me down sometimes because I think about the, you know, the program of record today, Artemis with SLS and Orion. And then there are a thousand criticisms of it.

And I wonder like how much would those criticisms matter if like there were four SLSs launching every year and there was a base on the moon. And like there was like a ton of actual activity. And, you know, they were they were driven to the actual objective of flying it and accomplishing things in space versus what we actually have where not only is it really expensive, but it's not also doing anything, right? And it's kind of what's really interesting about comparing it to lunar orbit Rodney. It was that there was all this Apollo debate and lots of stuff, but then they went and did it.

And so like Apollo was very expensive. We don't talk about that a lot, but it actually accomplished something. And there's a virtue to that that is now gone. And I think that's the only person obsessed. There was Casey Dreyer doing math about like inflation rates and stuff, but that's it. Yeah. Well, the difference is the cart before the horse. You know, the purpose drove the mission.

We needed to beat the Russians and therefore those decisions were settled based on what we were trying to accomplish. So in my view, the what, the how should follow the why. And we've been missing the why. In my view, the Y hasn't changed that much in that the NASA Space Act of 1958, you know, we are going to be leaders. We are going to help the country economically, and we are going to advance society. So if you're doing those, let's think about programs that will actually accomplish those things. But I love that question because if there were four SLS a year that even could fly, I think you'd get, less criticism. Of course, it's a combination on financial what the budget would take. But since

COVID and since the trillions that we keep adding to the budget, it really makes that, I think, a little bit less of an argument because people are understanding more the kinds of things you invest in and how those are stimulants. And NASA can be a stimulant. And if you are putting money on things that will return U.S. markets that we lost, which is what we were doing, did. You know, we hadn't launched anything, much less people commercially. We lost it all to the Chinese, Russians, and French. That's a net gain. The criticism of SLS, first of all, a lot of people don't even know anything about it. That's a good way to get out.

For sure. It doesn't come up in the presidential debate. Like, is that the rocket I saw on that Snoopy TV show? I think I saw that in the Snoopy show. Yes, people know more about the Martian. That was in the Martian, right? It's had it in the Martian. It's like, no, that was the other one that actually they used instead of SLS that they put

at the end of the Martian credits. But how we know about Tiger King, but not Artemis is. It was a little sad, sad. But we have the ability, I think, to use this moment at NASA when people are excited about space because there's more happening that's not just NASA. But as I say in the book, I'm really, really everybody is giving so much credit to what NASA has done for where we are. that I am concerned that SLS either it'll have problems or even if it goes perfectly, which let's all admit it's very hard for something like this to do, is going to be debated because people like me know we could be doing it differently

for more efficiently. And we said Artemis, we, the government, NASA, I like to be inclusive, was going to be sustainable. And there's nothing about this that's sustainable. And even in Apollo with Saturn 5, we went 12 times in five years with a Saturn 5 launch. You're telling me that the replacement can only go twice in that period of time. No one's expecting that. And we said we were going to go on the moon to stay, but we're not even going more than, you know,

it's like COVID between vacations. It's not good. Too much. Too much time. This is a long stay. It's a really long stay. They're not staying. I know.

They should, though. They should. Here's the thing, like, related to this, right? Something I'm always quick to bring up is that the natural life cycle of organizations is such that if you project your mind forward far enough, a couple decades maybe, SpaceX will one day be the old crusty in the room, and they will be the ones standing in the way of progress because they are the entrenched interests, unless and only unless they maintain what they're currently doing, which is continually killing their own products.

Like that is still what they're doing at Starship, right? They're going to, they've built the greatest commercial launch vehicle that has ever existed, and they're talking about getting rid of it in five years. So as long as they keep doing that, they can maintain. their kind of disruptor mentality, but I think they need to be constantly weary that they are going to be the old crusty one day, and there will be a new crop of people. So is there anything that you could impart to future leadership of that company that is, how do you prevent yourself from falling into the same trap that Boeing and North of Grumman and all those others did, you know,

in the early 2010s or 2000s. When the SpaceX employees kick Elon out, what do they tell the next leader? Yeah. Yeah, when Gwen has to hand over the reins, what is what happens? then. Well, she could lead it, of course. And I guess my, out of all my fears about a future, this is not high on the list because I do think SpaceX knows certainly more than I do as a institution about keeping innovation at the forefront. But you're right, of course. And there are many, many startups today that hope to be nipping at their heels. Yeah, the old SpaceX killer headline.

Can't get enough of that one. And I certainly get contacted by big investment houses who want to ask me, who do I think is the next SpaceX that they can go invest in? You know, as the economy has been good, that has helped get a lot of these folks going. And competition is what we were after. I really didn't have my thumb on the scale for SpaceX. It became obvious fairly quickly, certainly after they started flying cargo, that they were the one to beat. But the fact that they're so far ahead is scary.

And I think they will have to, you know, work to stay sharp. But this is not a big fear because, I mean, let's face it, stars. I didn't know how else to say it in the book, but the game will change again. And the fact that they are replacing themselves. I mean, what are the payloads going to be? There's going to be stuff done that we don't, we haven't thought of yet. So we need a lot of people. We need a lot more people thinking of stuff.

And then you have the downside of that. And how are we going to make sure that all of that does not undermine its value by, junking up space and earth. Lots of issues, but this, you know, I'm fascinated that we have gotten where we are so quickly. It seemed to go slow for decades. I mean, the 1980s, and you've talked to some of these people yourself, the space pirates, as I call them in the book, they foresaw this. We all thought it would happen a while ago. So, it's great to see it.

Yeah. So we've got a few minutes left here. I wondered if you could maybe just kind of close out with maybe your evaluation on the current administration or any advice you would give to, you know, to Bill Nelson or to Pam Melroy, you know, like what are we are we carrying on well right now? Is there more changes that we should be making? What do you put your assessment at today? I, you know, first reaction is that will be like I should say what I don't think,

because it would be George Costanza rules. They want to do the opposite of what I suggest. But on a more upbeat note, I guess I would really say we do need an agenda. We do need to articulate the real purpose for what we're doing. And we need to know that the president cares about that and that it is tied to our overall goals.

I think we know that one space council meeting, we had mainly the talk of STEM and climate. Well, that's because that is what this administration cares about, and NASA is helpful to them in that regard. How that can happen, and we are supposedly going back to the moon without the National Space Council even talking about that program is challenging. to see where where does it really fit.

And I worry about if we cannot articulate how it fits, we risk the success of it. I'm very much thinking that we are in a good place with bipartisanship on the hill over NASA. So that's always a good thing. I think Bill Nelson and certainly Pam have the respect of people on the hill and in the administration. So they've got a lot going for them.

It's really a question of it. Is this just really a race with China? Or can we talk about the fact that we've already won that race? This is for true leadership in a way that leaves us all better off. Yeah, Bill Nelson's favorite quote, watch the Chinese. He loves going into Congress and saying that. You did get him to go to Congress and say the word competition. So, you know, you're building converts.

Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I mean, his whole nomination hearing, he created it. Yeah, I don't even, I don't even believe that. There's plenty of things that NASA does. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're going too far, though. Vehicle.

Too far. I mean, cost plus. Too far. If you think about really cutting edge technical things, companies can't scope that risk. And I'm not sure most people will get this in the book, but I'm sure you did that this whole thing with the lunar lander. We really couldn't have done it cost plus without SpaceX because they're putting in their own money. They've already begun Starship with their own money. And otherwise, I mean, companies have to charge.

so much on a fixed cause because then they're taking on the risk. And by the way, look at the fixed price contract for Gateway, Maxar. We've already busted that. You know, it's not a panacea either. Yeah, me, yeah. What the government really needs to do is incentivize the behaviors that they want and structure their procurement around that. And that all starts with what you're trying to achieve.

all comes back to We're over time But Lori, we should also mention Everything else that you're doing outside of this Like Brooke Owens Fellowship I would love to hear a couple minutes If you've got another minute or two To just talk about that

And you've got like many different Brooke follow-on projects That you've started up over the last couple years So I would love to hear about that Of course Well, the joy of my life If you have You were lucky enough

to have a career that I have had is that you can be a role model and inspire people. And the only way we get anything done in this world is by the next generations doing it because we're here a limited amount of time. So very, very rewarding to be working with early career and collegiate people. My dear friend Brooke was diagnosed with cancer on her 30th birthday and she lived for six. brave years, but when she lost her battle that night, I just thought, how can I make sure her light still shines? She was motivating to me as, and she was my mentee. Her life inspired so many, and Cassie and Will, who co-founded that group with me, we've now got more than 200 brookies, as they call themselves, and expanded that to the Patty Grace Smith Fellowship. Unfortunately,

Patty also lost her life that year. And so black collegiate students have now their fellowship, where we also have gotten a great response from the community. So the good news is there's people really interested in the next generation's views and bringing in more diverse viewpoints and workforce. I feel like those people, I know it's, It's a great thing to make individual accomplishments, but nothing is really achieved without a group of people. And I just love watching those Brookies and what they're all doing. They are at all these companies doing great things. Yeah, you tell a great story in the book about one one Brookie who was in the pad closeout crew for DM2,

which has got to be a very fulfilling thing to see, you know, get end to end like that. But, I mean, even I've I've crossed paths with a few of these brookies. And like everyone I met, like they are a force. They are, they have, they've got a chip on their shoulder. They're ready to make a difference and be a part of the space industry and really get things done. And so to you and all the mentors out there who have been participating in that, like, good work. It's awesome. Yeah.

Can you give like a timeline for people that might be listening, inches in this kind of thing? Like what is the general seasonality of these? Yes. We have the 2022 class in place. They are in their internships this summer. This is a summer internship program, but we will have the new applications online soon. It is certainly by July and applications. We keep making the due date earlier and earlier because we are becoming more and more competitive

and those people really line up their summer internships early. So I shouldn't tell you the deadline. It used to be November 1st, but I'm sure it's maybe a little before that to get in your application. And we make our selections right around the holidays. My kids already know, like, all I really want to do with Thanksgiving and Christmas now is call and give people good luck, you know, news that they got in. I really appreciate screams and tears, especially. And then we match them with companies in January, match them when they're mentors. And in February, we make the announcement.

It's a year-long process. Yeah, for real. And I guess we should also talk about this book again, because your book is coming out, June 21st in all formats. You mentioned at the top of the show, East City Bookshop, if we want to sign copies. That's where to go. We've got links in the show notes.

Jake and I got advanced copies to read and then I also finished it in an audiobook form which you read yourself. We didn't even talk about that. Crap, there was like the best story of all time. I'll have to have you back to talk about that. Totally forgot about the book voice story. But is there anywhere in particular you'd like to send people if they're interested in escaping gravity?

My website, which is laurigarver.com. I've got links to all the amazing blurbs from people who got advanced copies and read the book and said nice things. And I have some excerpts out there, but in just a couple days, you can get your own copy. So I'm very excited to share the story, but of course also nervous, nervous about its reception in the space world. It's going to be awesome. I don't know if this still works the same way, but I've had a couple friends release books over the years, and it doesn't come out until the 21st, but you can pre-order the book, and all of the pre-order sales get counted on launch day. So it makes a huge difference in Lori's book going way up the charts on all of the bestseller lists. So, like, pre-order whenever

you're listening to this, number one, this is a must read. If you're listening to the show next week and you haven't bought this book, I'm personally angry at you because this is like the most, this is the most Jake and Anthony content that there has ever been. So it is required reading. Summer reading for the off-nominal listenership is escaping gravity. 100% required reading. Don't watch the show again until you're finished it is my advice. Putting your foot down. Yeah. I love it. Yes. I know my audience. I was like, these are my people. I'm doing it. Lorry, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on and like I said we'll have to have you back for the story of how you almost did a Barack Obama impression in your audio book recording indeed my my my punch started with

folks right folks yeah but it was it was my son who said don't do it mom you might get canceled this is why we need young people this is why we need young people Oh, they have taught me so much. Yeah, yeah. Anthony, speaking of next week, we got a fun show as well. We're going to be able to almost like do a follow on to this. So we're having Eric Berger on next week. That's the week after.

That's the week after? Yeah, but you should also plug that. Let's plug that one first. June 30th. Eric Berger's coming on the show to have the debate of is Bill Nelson a good NASA administrator or not. Because he recently did this Twitter thread where he was like, I was wrong. He's doing a good job. I'm pretty sure Jake and I harshly disagree with that take.

So it's going to be a fantastic debate where we will sort out exactly how good of a job he is or is not doing. I might have DMed Eric when I saw that. You can come back if you're available June 30th. It might be a bit much. Three on one might be a little harsh for Eric. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Andy.

Yes. I'm getting my weeks mixed up. But in two weeks we have Eric Berger. That's fine. What's next week, though? next week, though, I do have, we're going to do a little episode about the whole Starbase thing because we had a whole resolution to the big story about the FAA approval and all that kind of stuff. So I have some friends from the NASASpaceflight.com institution who have been following this better than anyone, I think. There's no journalistic organization that has spent more time and energy keeping track of every step along the way.

So we're going to talk about that and have some fun with that as well. I'll be on the road, so enjoy the Osolot watch that you're getting into there. We're going to talk about book reports, yeah. Lori's next book is on the Mexican Civil War that happened in Boca, Texas. It's fiction. My next one is fiction. That's right. Lori, thanks so much for hanging out with today.

This is really, really fun. Thank you. Have a good one. One, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, one. Thank you.