Chris J. Karr reviewed Escaping Gravity by Lori Garver
Solid history
4 stars
After reading Ashlee Vance's "When the Heavens Went on Sale", I expected this to be more of a book about the same companies and same New Space developments, but from the government angle.
Instead, I got a much longer history of Garver's involvement in space policy stretching beyond the Challenger disaster. To the extent New Space is a theme in this book, it's mainly focused on SpaceX, with Blue Origin following a close second. (The hero of Vance's book, Gen. Pete Worden is mentioned ONCE.)
And you know what? That's fine. SpaceX has been the big driver in changing American space policy, and Garver's account really highlights what an uphill battle that was within NASA. Much of the book describes her bucking the prevailing attitudes at NASA (though she is quick to justify that as an allegiance to the President over the NASA administrator), and succeeding in some cases, and …
After reading Ashlee Vance's "When the Heavens Went on Sale", I expected this to be more of a book about the same companies and same New Space developments, but from the government angle.
Instead, I got a much longer history of Garver's involvement in space policy stretching beyond the Challenger disaster. To the extent New Space is a theme in this book, it's mainly focused on SpaceX, with Blue Origin following a close second. (The hero of Vance's book, Gen. Pete Worden is mentioned ONCE.)
And you know what? That's fine. SpaceX has been the big driver in changing American space policy, and Garver's account really highlights what an uphill battle that was within NASA. Much of the book describes her bucking the prevailing attitudes at NASA (though she is quick to justify that as an allegiance to the President over the NASA administrator), and succeeding in some cases, and losing in a lot.
In the end, I got a different book than the one I expected, but it was quite interesting nonetheless.