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Make no mistake and don’t be fooled by her rhetoric, Garver is a committed liberal who will bring NASA towards cronyism and liberal policies.

Cronyism in Space?



"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" was the phrase that defined a historic event--a global, scientific breakthrough which defined American ingenuity and exceptionalism. A generation of innovators, explorers, and scientists were inspired by this new world which had opened because of the ingenuity and talent responsible for completing NASA's core mission: deep space exploration, aeronautics and science. However, deep space exploration of this new world has not been fully funded by the Obama Administration as funds for these programs have been slashed and diverted to the Earth Science Mission Directorate.
According to the Daily Caller, NASA’s budget includes more than $2 billion for the agency’s Earth Science Mission Directorate, which covers global warming science. The money will be specifically allocated to improve climate modeling, weather prediction and natural hazard mitigation. The Earth Science Mission Directorate’s goal is to help NASA “meet the challenges of climate and environmental change.” The organization is also responsible for global warming models proven to be inaccurate when checked against actual temperature observations.​ Spending on the Directorate has increased by 63 percent over the last eight years, making it the largest and fastest growing budget of any NASA science program. Over the same time period, the general NASA budget grew only by 10.6 percent — just enough to account for inflation.

Commercialization of space exploration through government subsides to private companies

Tax payer funds have not only been diverted from Nasa's core mission but also diverted to the commercialization of space exploration through government subsides to private company's like Space X. Elon Musk, the company's founder, broke down in tears in late 2008 when a $1.6 billion contract from NASA to supply the International Space Station saved his company. Is Elan Musk crying all the way to the bank? According to the LA Times, Elon Musk's portfolio of companies has benefited in $4.9 M in government subsidies. He definitely goes where there is government money," said Dan Dolev, an analyst at Jefferies Equity Research. "That's a great strategy, but the government will cut you off one day."

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But will a Trump administration cut off subsidies for space commercialization and refocus their mission and reallocate tax payer dollars to space exploration? If Lori Garver is at the helm of NASA, we can only speculate. Garver was Hillary Clinton’s closest advisor on space policy during the 2008 election. According to Garver, "NASA was a very symbol of capitalist ideals when we went to the Moon and beat the Russians,” she said. “Now what we’re working with is more of a socialist plan for space exploration, which is just anathema to what this country should be doing. Don’t try to compete with the private sector. Incentivize them by driving technologies that will be necessary for us as we explore further." Sounds great until you understand that Garver is close to crony capitalist Elon Musk who has been a large beneficiary of government subsidies. Garver sounded like a cost cutting conservative when she argued in a January 2014 appearance on the Diane Rehm show that SpaceX was “doing things in a new way,” and that the agency should mimic their reductions in launch costs, adding "that is what we should be doing in our space program, driving innovation and help this country again lead the world.” SpaceX’s cost cutting has led to multiple crashes and they are clearly a contractor who is losing money for the federal government because of launch failures resulting in crashes. The fact of the matter is that she is too close to Musk and SpaceX and should be no where near a new Trump Administration handling space policy. Furthermore, Garver was a policy advisor for the presidential campaigns of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. She was then rewarded with an appointment as a deputy in NASA in May of 2009 that raised some ethical questions. Make no mistake and don’t be fooled by her rhetoric, Garver is a committed liberal who will bring NASA towards cronyism and liberal policies.


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Megan Barth -- Bio and Archives

Articles with Katy Grimes

Megan Barth, is co-chair of RedWave America PAC and The Media Equality Project. She serves as national spokeswoman for MediaEqualizer.com, the leading online watchdog for the intersection of Media, Technology and Government.  .


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