NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver is leaving NASA to take a job “in the private sector outside the space industry.”

NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver is leaving NASA to take a job “in the private sector outside the space industry.”

Garver was instrumental in accelerating during the Obama administration the new commercial space program that Mike Griffin began during the Bush administration. I fear what will happen with her gone and Charles Bolden on his own. Moreover, one wonders why she is leaving now. She has worked in the private sector in the past, but never when she had the opportunity to influence policy during a Democratic administration. It could simply be that she got an offer she couldn’t refuse. Or it could be that she doesn’t like what she sees in NASA, the Obama administration, or Congress, and wants out.