Lori Garver, the former deputy administrator of NASA, is not happy with President Joe Biden’s nomination of former Sen. Bill Nelson to become the space agency’s next administrator.
Her critique of Nelson in the pages of Scientific American as a purveyor of space pork is spot-on. Nelson is the author of the heavy-lift Space Launch System, which is obsolete before it has ever flown, not to mention being far behind schedule and over budget. Garver failed to mention her role in letting Nelson do that, which she relates in a piece published in CNBC.
It should be noted that former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine endorsed Nelson’s nomination. The endorsement is ironic, considering that as a senator, Nelson fought hard to derail Bridenstine’s own nomination for head of the space agency, the theory being that a politician ought not to be NASA administrator. The two gentlemen seem to have come to an understanding, however.
Garver repeated her proposal to turn NASA into a climate change agency, believing that fighting global warming is more “relevant” than space exploration. The plea is certain to fall on deaf ears, considering that both the Trump and Biden administrations have endorsed the Artemis return-to-the-moon program. Biden has proposed spending more NASA funding on Earth science, but not at the expense of going back to the moon and on to Mars.
Garver goes off the rails when she suggests that NASA is rife with sexism because a woman was not chosen as its next administrator. Kathy Lueders, who currently is in charge of NASA’s human space exploration and operations, would make an excellent administrator. But as an experienced engineer and manager, she may have the perfect job to help send Americans back to the moon and on to Mars, no little responsibility, that.
In any case, thanks to a decision by Jim Bridenstine, the next American to walk on the moon is going to be a woman, “the first woman and the next man.” The Biden administration has altered that statement to say, “the first woman and the first person of color.” The statement is not, in any way, a move to sacrifice competence for gender and racial identity. The latest group of astronauts, dubbed the Artemis Team, has nine men and nine women from a variety of ethnic and professional backgrounds. The next Americans to walk on the moon will be as qualified as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Garver has another complaint: “Patriarchal organizations often view strong, competent and confident men with good ideas as powerful — even if their ideas are unpopular — while viewing strong, competent and confident women with good ideas as arrogant or aggravating — especially when their ideas are unpopular.”
Garver does not provide any examples of the powerful men and “arrogant or aggravating” women. One suspects that she was referring to herself in the latter case. She was instrumental in the Obama administration’s decision to cancel rather than reform the Bush 43 Constellation program, a fact that no doubt made her greatly resented at NASA.
Scott Pace, who recently led the National Space Council, noted in a New York Times interview that the cancellation of Constellation led to “the decline and deterioration of relationships between the White House and Congress over the direction of space policy.” He went on to note that Garver “was part of it. I don’t put sole blame on her. She was one of the more visible faces of that.”
Bill Nelson has a lot of deficits against him for the job of NASA administrator. One advantage is the same one that Jim Bridenstine has. He is a politician with friendships that reach all the way to the Oval Office. Just as Bridenstine could get then-Vice President Mike Pence on the phone to help with a funding or political problem, Nelson could call Biden, with whom he served in the Senate, for the same purpose. It is hoped that he will use that ability for the good of NASA and the United States.
When the Senate holds confirmation hearings, it should weigh those deficits and that one advantage. The one thing it should not consider is the former senator’s gender.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration titled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond. He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
