Comcast supports cspan2 as a public service. Larry garver, its a pleasure to be here with you. Werer excited for your new boo, escaping gravity. As you say in the subtitle, its your quest to transform nasa. I wonder if you can start with why in your view did nasa need to be transformed . Thanks, chris. Its great to be here with you too. I have been at nasa in the 1990s working on the nasa administrator at the time, ben goldman and was actively and successfully working to transform nasa. In i had previous to that worked for a Grass Roots Organization who was really interested in returning human space flight to more than just a handful of as gnats. As astronauts and nasa lost its way to get humans into space. Coming back to nasa as the deputy administrator in the Obama Administration, i thought it was very natural goal to want to continue that transformation process and president elect obama agreed. Its a lot of peoples quest for decades and thats why i wrote the book. Open that up, you say nasa lost its way. Thats a b big statement. What do you mean by that and how did that happen . Lori talking primarily at human space flight at nasa and many, many things at nasa go very well and human space flight had been hugely important and transformational even since apollo. But the shuttle was supposed to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of human space transportation, and it had not. We had only flown a couple hundred astronauts since apollo in the 30 years since and we had lost two crews, 14 people in a system that was clearly not going to be reliable and its never going be cheap. Ie got out of college, we are p going to be sending people back to the moon and onto mars and they had not ever been possible but i think most people agree that gone to the moon and had not created the advancements in progress. Was there like an apollo and like the soviet union and industrial compensation and what were the Problems Holding nasa back and because of that, we established Crash Program and flat configuration a racetype of format and that meant we were born on the end to do things one time. That didnt build a Sustainability Program and nasa was asked to achieve that. It did not create a environment that you could do things in a way that was left more sustainable and less costly and in a program and gave us incentives and companies and were incentivized to use thoseer facilities and much overbuilt for the mission of the shuttle which was to reduce the cost of space transformation. Nasa wants to employ their contractors and wanted to employ the p people who work in the institutions and just kept going. That made the future programs expensive by design. Instead of doing things like we had in aviation where the private sector really drove the innovation and the government did assist with both Technology Advancements as well the sort of anchor tendency as we know it today, which ultimately have been doing for human space flight, but in the early days it was called the kelly airmail act. The government just paid the airlines to carry the mail. And that allowed the airlines to invest in the capability because they had a customer. T once they had that customer, they could go find more. Space transportation launches a lot more than just government payroll and people. Yet we had not found a way to really leverage governments investment to expan the market. Thats the transformation thats allowing us i think to make that change today. Well get into the dynamic of the Public Private partnershipss and when we talk about programs like apollo and the Space Shuttle, people forget that after apollo people kind of lost interest in space and maybe the shuttle was dynamic at first but then people kind of lost interest in that and your excellent book is sort of coming out at a time too where theres a lot of competing interests and a war in europe and inflation, the pandemic is still going on, i mean, what do you tell people about why they should care about space and care about this era and this history in space policy, which is crucial in transformative and in so many ways but why is that in your view important . Lori. The unique advantage of space given us unbelievable returns as society and humans. We first went to space in the 50s but what we gained as far as instantaneous communications and evenic lookig back at our home planet has allowed us to completely change our perspective and learn new knowledge. When we sent humans, we went to beat thee russians but we recognize by doing that, we were opening up potentially space for more purposes. And, of course, nasa has tried to recreate a purpose of sort of the cold war with china today. I think we are really struggling for the value. In my view and escaping gravity higher come from this, we were able to escape gravity, launch things and people from the earth because we had a unified goal. Its really hard to beat gravity. D smart people who have the same vision can do it, and we havent had that with human spaceflight that united vision, to be able to see why the government should put in the publics money for that purpose. Private sector,re as it gets lor costs, we are seeing people have the own reasons to go to space. But for the government the unique purpose, in my view, is benefiting society. So be on just the things we get from robotics spacecraft, humans going to space is transformational. We know that the first photograph from the far side of the moon that was taken by astronauts called earthrise started the environmental movement. Lots of pictures have been taken from space of the earth, but not by humans. We go with our astronauts when they go to space, and i believe there is plenty of wonderful robotic things to do as well, but for civilization, humanity as a species there is no doubt that over the long term if we want too survive we need to be a multiplanetaryso and beyond species. So the very early beginnings of that are underway today, right. Host lets jump into the deep end of the narrative and one of the main tension points when youre coming into nasa as the deputy administrator, the Space Shuttle is sort of honest last pressure on its last legs. Theres this program called constellation thats way over budget, behind schedule. Talks about canceling it. What was the situation you were walking to you at nasa when you became the deputy, administrato. Guest that was a unique time in the Space Program. I had left nasa in 2001, now a 2008 ive been asked before even being deputy to lead the Transition Team for the incoming Obama Administration. And the Human Spaceflight Program was in disarray. Not only that we were retiring the shuttle which d i felt was e right decision. There was a really a lot of political difference of opinion on that. The former george w. Bush president had deemed that necessary if we werent able to recertify the shuttle which would have been very expensive. As you said the program constellation replaced it. We found was offtrack. It had in its first four years spent over 8 billion but had had been delayed five years. If you were going to keep it going it was currently going to launch only after within their budget profile the space station wouldve had to have been du orbited. Their plan was only able to be paid for if they deal orbited the space station. We knew they were going to really do that. They were trying to really just trick the next administration into getting more money. You come into administration,t least i did, not wanting to lie to the president. That didnt strike me aser something i should probably do. What he uncovered, i had to either uncover it or lie. I found a workaround, which was get a Blue Ribbon Committee to look at the Human Spaceflight Program, populate it with bright mind to didnt have an ax to grind. We had a couple of wonderful astronauts, the ceo, former ceo of Lockheed Martin chair that and they came up with the same scenario that we did. They uncovered the problem with the program and w gave us some options for howfo we could move forward when we made a decision to go forward that wasnt popularto and as outlined in the book i took a lot of the blame, but the truth is, so many people really a did agree that we weret an impasse and something had to be done. Host explain, what was constellation and what did it consist of and why was it so badly managed . Nt owned and operd program along the lines of follow the head of nasa at the time called it apollo on steroids, and it was established to do all things. It was supposed to start with a capsule. Aldo ryan which we still have and a rocket called ares one that would take astronauts to the space station. After the shuttle retired, of course, the space station wasnt going to be there anymore unless they got a lot more money, but its longerterm goal was to build an even larger rocket called the aries five that would take us back to the Moon Astronauts on the moon again. Those were the only real three elements along with ground systems. And only the first two were funded but the review showed we would never get to the moon and again would would have needed the money from the space station and and the fault is really no different than what were experiencing today. It was a cost plus program, really . Initiated to continue the shuttle contracts to keep money flowing to the congressional districts and three to five billion dollars a year youd keep going at that rate without making a lot of progress, you know, we did have women in apollo the ability to build up right away and when you can come in and do that you can succeed but at budgets today, thats not really possible and plus its not really what we should be doing given the goal is to sustain progress. So here we are constellation has to carry the infrastructure of apollo. Its no ones fault. Its just the system was set up against doing those kinds of programs unless you get really really large amounts of money. So emblematic of what youre talking about why nasa needed to be transformed a lot of money going in but not a lot of progress who you stand up this commission normagen scene the former sea of Lockheed Martin endorses your view you bring this but with different options to the president and he supported the cancellation did did that surprise you . Well, lets start that surviving. What did you make of that and that moment and once you knew thats what you were going forward. How did you prepare for that . Because you knew that was going to set off a firestorm. Yes, we had on the Transition Team. Our report had pretty much aligned with what the Augustine Committee later came up with so having the Augustine Committee and our transition report both say, you know, this program consolation is not something you should keep investing in and the way to get humans back to space is through the private sector. I was very confident that that not only was the only way to go forward the best way to go forward, but the president agreed i had talked to him enough he agreed. Plus it just makes sense. Unless youre getting money, you know billions from the people who feel they might not be as competitive if that were opened up to others. So we were already to announce this actually in october of that year, but the white house was very concerned about keeping every vote for health care. We had a really close margin to have our 60 votes in the senate with with the democratic leadership and they decided to just incorporate the decision with the budget process. Well that meant we had to involve many more people which in a way was a good thing because it meant the National Economic council got involved and certainly the office of Science Technology policy omb, but nasa didnt want to do it and the budget process has to go through the administration but the agency prepares the budget. The budget the agency prepared kept consolation. It didnt add commercial crew. I tried to get them to change my my boss at the time the head of nasa. Charlie bolden was just ready to do what the nasa people wanted to do and wasnt really listening and meetings with the white house even his last meeting with the president which i outlined in the book. He came away and told me how it went. It was very clear to me what the president would choose, but we got the answer a couple weeks after that and it surprised charlie did not surprise me, right . So this this is a memoir and as youre going through that experience of trying to cancel a major Government Program worth billions of dollars to some of the most entrenched interests of washington. You came under attack. I mean this became personal you open the book with a scene of being threatened where you received or a letter was sent to nasa with some white powdery substance and can you talk about that experience and what you endured going through all of that sure it was surprising and of course disheartening that i was attacked for putting something forward that i thought was very well studied that again in the 1990s the nasa major administrator at the time had supported indeed. We were already planning to launch cargo with the private sector through a program starter by the previous administration, but i think because the administrative nasa didnt agree and he was an astronaut and revered marine general. Having a woman i was young 48 at the time that i went there. I didnt have a technical degree. I was the one to attack and being physically threatened as the sort of prelude outlines was very surprising and scary and i was strengthened by it in some ways because it made me realize these are not good people who are fighting there are fighting unethically illegally and some instances and of course the system is corrupt in many ways beyond nasa, you know, just this status quo of well, ill scratch your back. Youre scratch mine. Thats thats not what our country. Should be doing at the point where you had security. Nasa security was alerted a few times to threats that somehow they would never tell me details but somehow or credible enough that i would have a security detail even walk me to my car in the nasa garage. That was the hardest because you know sort of like the calls coming from inside the house. These were people i hoped to lead to a Better Future and who i knew had been frustrated, but they also were very bought into the current programs and lots of lies and ugliness for and therefore people considered maybe if they got rid of me they could get rid of the problem and go back to how things were where we spent a lot of money and didnt go anywhere right . Well you you mentioned Charlie Bolton who during this time was the nasa administrator. Former astronaut marine corps general sort of beloved in the Space Community the aeroSpace Community and just sort of generally you all had some significant differences and you write about in the book at times going around him in a lack of trust. So i wonder if you can talk a little bit about that relationship with him. Yeah, i would have tried to not talk about much of this if the story could be told without it because charlie is a person who you know, ive we were very friendly certainly especially at the beginning. Revered and understandably and deservedly so for many accomplishments hes made. He was someone who the Administration First of all hadnt selected to be nasa administrator at first senator bill nelson, and he had flown on the Space Shuttle years before together and bonded and senator nelson fought as i outlined in the book to have charlie be administrator. That was after i had already been not named publicly but asked to serve as Deputy Administration and after the Transition Team had already really formulated the policy and the augustine report was underway. So charlie came in late and didnt agree with president s plan, which he liked to consider my plan, but i kept saying well, you know, its really the president who we all work for who should be aligned. In fact, i understand. He asked rum emmanuel during his interview for head of nasa. Could he pick his own deputy . And rom said . No, weve got lori garver to be deputy and charlie said, well, what if we dont agree on things and he said you both work for the president so we dont expect any problems. I i know that im seeing as the outlier, but i wasnt the outlier and my choice. As a deputy of a federal agency in your center confirmed is you know, do you follow your immediate boss or the president . And i was nominated by the president charlie couldnt find me. Im told he tried a few times and that wasnt wasnt approved by the white house. So i did when it became clear charlie was working behind the scenes against the president not share everything i was doing with them and as i say in the book, my biggest regret is not being able to develop a trusting relationship with charlie and i really dont think hes bad. I think he was listening to the people the wrong people who were selfinvested in the status quo and hes such a nice person. Oh, well, they know, you know, he doesnt really question there. Motives all right, so you come perhaps from a different background than the sort of traditional nasa astronaut in you have a name for them and in the book the space pirates. I wonder if you can talk about that. What are the space pirates . What are they represent . Whats their philosophy . What who are they and the book was even called space pirates by the publisher at one point because i refer to them in the book as a people who raised me when i first came into the Space Community. I worked at a small nonprofit. Its called the National Space society and their goal was to create a spacefaring civilization again post apollo thinking well, we thought space was going to be open to more of us than a handful of astronauts and the way to do that is expand beyond just government owned and operated program seem very logical to me, but it didnt seem logical to the people getting the billions. S