The NASA logo is recognizable around the world because of the near-impossible feats we have accomplished and all we are still capable of achieving. In some years past, we became comfortable moving at a different pace, one inconsistent with Mercury, Gemini, Apollo or Shuttle. We started outsourcing capabilities that should be essential to any organization built around technical, operational and engineering excellence. For a period of time, we tried to make everyone happy. In most cases, that means no one is happy, because the headlines the interested public was waiting to read took far too long, cost way too much and, in many cases, were never realized at all. The best and brightest across NASA show up to work each day looking to change the world, and that meant dusting off the playbook from decades past and getting after it. We are rebuilding the workforce after a level of outsourced staffing that was indefensible. We are pausing and pivoting away from programs that were not on a path to success, freeing up billions of dollars in resources, and refocusing on the President’s national space policy and the objectives outlined through Ignition, including the missions no other agency, company or even nation is capable of achieving. And we are off to a good start. This is how NASA made the history that inspired so many of us, and this is how we will do it again.
