Transformed . Thanks chris. Its a great to be here with you too. I have been at nasa in the 1990s working under the nasa administrator at the time dan golden who was actively and successfully in many ways working to transform nasa. I had previous to that worked for a grassroots organization. That was really interested in returning human space flight to more than just a handful of astronauts and nasa had sort of lost. Its way i think after the shuttle accidents when they didnt. Have the ability to get more people into space for lower costs more reliably. That was the goal of the shuttle. So 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 happened to agree. So it says my quest because its a memoir, but its a lot of peoples quest for decades and thats why i wrote the book. Well, lets open that up for a minute. You say that nasa had lost its way. I mean thats sort of a big statement. What do you mean by that . And how did that happen . You know, were talking primarily here about human spaceflight at nasa many many things at nasa go very well and in fact human spaceflight has in some sense then 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 of hundred astronauts since apollo in the 30 years since and we had lost two crews 14 people in a system. That was clearly never going to be reliable because its design and it was never going to be cheap. So when i got out of college we were going to be sending people back to the moon and on to mars within decades at the end of apollo. They said we could land on mars in 1984. Now that may have not ever been possible, but i think most people agree that human space flight post 1972 with our last steps on the moon had not created the advancements and progress that most people envisioned and certainly that the agency had intended to so what were the main problems there is that that there wasnt like in during apollo sort of a cold war adversary like the soviet union as a Congress Military industrial complex. I mean what were the sort of Problems Holding nasa back . Do you think those are all parts of it . And we we know that we went to the moon to beat the russians and because of that we established a crash program, so we set things up in a race type of format and that meant we were pouring money in. To do things one time and that didnt build a Sustainable Program not a fault of nasas because they were asked to win the race and they achieved that amazing, um accomplishment, but it did not create an environment where you could do things in a way that left a more sustainable less costly program and in fact it us three verse incentives. Companies and congress who had developed capabilities people in their districts infrastructure needed to or were incentivized to use those very facilities, which were much overbuilt for the mission of the shuttle which was to reduce the cost of space transportation nasa. Wanted to employ their contractors. They wanted to employ the people who worked in these 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 as this sort of anchor tenancy as we know it today, which we ultimately have been doing for human spaceflight, but in the early days, it was called the kelly airmail act the government just paid the airlines to carry the male and that allowed the airlines to invest in the capability because they had a customer. And once they had that customer they could go find more space transportation launches a lot more than just government payloads and people and yet we had not found a way to really leverage the governments investment to expand the market and thats the transformation that is allowing us. I think to make that change today and well get into sort of the dynamic of those publicprivate partnerships, but you know when we talk about programs like apollo in this in the Space Shuttle, i mean 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 youre excellent book is sort of coming out at a time too where there are a lot of competing interest. Theres a war in europe, theres inflation. The pandemic is still going on. I mean, what do you tell people about why they should care about space and why we should care about this era this history and space policy which is which was crucial and trans. Been so many ways. But why is that a near view important . Well the unique vantage of space has given us unbelievable returns as a society as humans, you know, we first went to space in the 50s, but what we gained as far as instantaneous communications and even looking 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 the russians, but we recognize that by doing that we were opening up potentially space for more purposes. I think the real problem for the Government Space Program and why maybe between apollo and the shuttle their is less public support was less a public support as people didnt understand the purpose. We knew an apollo the purpose but after that, okay reducing the cost. That doesnt seem like a very great purpose. 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 gravitys title comes from this, you know, we were able to escape gravity launch things and people from the earth because we had a unified goal. Is really hard to be gravity. 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 as it gets lower costs. We are seeing people have their own reasons to go to space but for the government the unique purpose in my view is benefiting society. So beyond 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 a human 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 to survive we need to be a multiplanetary and beyond species. So the very early beginnings of that are underway today, right . So lets sort of 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 legs. Theres this program called constellation. Thats way over budget behind schedule talks about canceling it. I mean, what was the situation that you were walking into at nasa when you became the deputy administrator . Yeah, that was a unique time in the Space Program. I had left nasa in 2001. And now in 2008 i had been asked before even being deputy to lead the Transition Team for the incoming Obama Administration and the Human Spaceflight Program was in disarray. I should say not only we we were retiring the shuttle which i felt was the right decision. There wasnt really a lot of political. Um 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 to replace it we found was off track it had in its first four years spent. Over 8 billion dollars, but 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 would have had to have been deorbited. Their plan was only able to be paid for if they deorbited the space station. We knew they werent going to really do that. They were trying to really just trick the next administration into giving more money. Situation at least i did not wanting to lie to the president that just didnt strike me as something i should probably do and what i uncovered i i had to either uncover it or lie, and i found a workaround which was get a Blue Ribbon Committee to look at the Human Spaceflight Program populate it with bright minds who didnt have an ax to grind. We had a couple of wonderful astronauts the ceo former ceo of Lockheed Martin or magazine chair and they came up with the same scenario that we did. They uncovered the problem with the program and gave us some options for how we could move forward when we made a decision to go for that wasnt popular and as i outlined in the book, i took a lot of the blame, but the truth is so many people really did agree that we were an impasse and something had to be done. So explain for what was constellation. I mean, what did it consist of and why was it so badly managed . I mean what was going on there . So constellation was a government owned and operated 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