Escaping Gravity
NASA insider on the policy fight that funded commercial crew.
Summary
Garver served as deputy administrator of NASA from 2009 to 2013 and wrote this account of the fight to establish commercial spaceflight as the agency's approach to human transportation.
Her argument concerns institutional interest. NASA's human spaceflight programme, she argues, had become a mechanism for distributing employment and contracts across states and districts rather than an instrument for achieving results in space. The Constellation programme, which she and the incoming administration cancelled, was years behind schedule and billions over budget with no prospect of flying on any announced date. The Space Launch System that replaced it was specified by Congress in legislation that effectively required the use of Space Shuttle contractors and components, which preserved the industrial base and the associated employment.
Against this she describes the commercial approach: fixed-price milestone-based contracts under which NASA pays for results rather than reimbursing costs, with the contractor retaining ownership of the vehicle and free to sell services to others. She traces the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services programme that funded SpaceX and Orbital for cargo, and the Commercial Crew programme for astronaut transport, and documents the opposition from within NASA, from established contractors and from members of Congress whose districts held the existing work.
Garver is explicit about the personal cost, including the hostility she faced and her characterisation of the internal opposition.
The book is a participant's account of a fight she largely won, written by someone with a clear position. Commercial crew delivered astronaut transport at a fraction of the projected cost of the alternative, which supports her case. She gives less attention to the risks of the commercial approach, including dependence on a small number of providers and the concentration of capability in privately controlled companies.
Key takeaways 7
- NASA's human spaceflight programme functioned as a mechanism for distributing employment and contracts across congressional districts.
- The Space Launch System was specified in legislation that effectively required using existing Shuttle contractors and components.
- Fixed-price milestone contracts pay for results while cost-plus contracts reimburse expenditure regardless of outcome.
- Allowing contractors to retain ownership of the vehicles let them sell services to other customers, which changed the economics entirely.
- Commercial crew delivered astronaut transport at a fraction of the projected cost of the government-owned alternative.
- Opposition came from inside the agency, from established contractors and from members of Congress simultaneously.
- Concentrating national launch capability in a small number of privately controlled companies is a risk the book gives limited attention to.
Who should read it
Readers interested in government procurement reform and in how a fixed-price commercial model displaced cost-plus contracting in one sector.
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