Commentary
Former Senator Bill Nelson, the current administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), told the German newspaper Bild on July 2, “There is a new race to space, this time with China.”
Whether America and the free world will win that race has much to do with Nelson’s budgetary and political battles with former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver over the last decade.
Garver’s side of the story is relayed in her recent memoir, “Escaping Gravity, My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age,” one of this summer’s space policy literary events.
Garver, who served in several planning positions at NASA during the Clinton administration, became the chief space policy adviser for former President Barack Obama, led his NASA transition team, and served as NASA deputy administrator from 2009 to 2013….