“The perpetual cozy system that shaped the behavior largely remains in place,” she writes. She argues that while more funding goes into SLS than Commercial Crew, a program working with the space private sector, they are less efficient. In her book, Garver makes the case that existing NASA programs such as Space Launch System (SLS) are more costly and less successful than private sector efforts. A “shitstorm” ignited when they were informed that wouldn’t be the case, but contracts were eventually renegotiated for billions of dollars. She found solace in the theme that when you try to disrupt a system, you meet pushback and criticism.Īccording to Garver’s book, when NASA ended Constellation, contracting companies attempted to be compensated for the cancellation of contracts. Garver told The Hill she also received hate mail and even “dog shit” and said she managed to keep her head up after watching the film “Moneyball,” a movie starring Brad Pitt, who works against the traditional league system to try to win a championship as the general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team. People demeaned her with names like “ugly whore” and told her to “get laid” or said she was “going through menopause,” which she argued in her book was a result of her being a woman in the aerospace community. Hatch wagged a finger in her face and said, “I know you are the problem here,” she recounted in her new book. She was criticized for much of the changes she wanted to make at NASA.Īt one point, the late Sen. Garver writes that she took the brunt of the attacks from companies, the public and elected officials who were irate that Constellation was canceled. The program was ultimately canceled in 2010. Taxpayers paid up more than $9 billion by the time Obama realized the Ares rocket and the Orion spacecraft were behind schedule, as were the scheduled flights to the moon by the early 2020s. ![]() By the following year, the waste was evident to the president, Garver writes. Obama reluctantly extended the program in 2009. ![]() Under the Constellation program, NASA contracted with large private companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems. It had a larger goal to establish a foothold on the moon so NASA could send manned missions to Mars and elsewhere in space. Bush administration with the intention to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020. “Many of us encountered unwanted sexual advances and harassing behavior without showing offense.”Ĭonstellation was announced in 2004 under the George W. “Being objectified was a part of being a woman working in aerospace when I was in my twenties and thirties, and I learned which men to avoid in the community,” Garver writes. When she served at NASA in a more minor role in the ’90s, Garver recalls a NASA policy administrator calling her into his office on her birthday and suggesting he give her a “birthday spanking.” In the book, she describes NASA culture as “reminiscent of the forts boys built and filled with cigarettes and girlie magazines.” She also writes of a persistent toxic male culture still prevalent at NASA and in the space community at large, writing that she and other women were subjected to misogynistic, sexist remarks and insults. The result was a years-long setback for the space agency, according to Garver, who details in her new book a system of government waste and inefficiency during her years at NASA. Garver writes that she pressed NASA to work with the private sector to embrace what she saw as a new era of space exploration - a vision she says was eventually accepted but only after relentless infighting. The agency fought bitterly over what programs to pursue or cancel and what missions to fund. ![]() ![]() The resistance held the space agency and the future of space exploration back, according to Garver. Instead, Garver writes in her new book “Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age,” she encountered stiff pushback from lawmakers who wanted to keep existing space programs that benefited companies who contract with NASA.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |