No Hope for a NASA Revival

It’s not just red tape holding back government-funded exploration and innovation. It’s a new cultural pessimism about the future.

There is a joint NASA-SpaceX launch this week. But even this collaboration is a sign of the agency’s decline before its private competitor. Elon Musk’s space company is effectively giving NASA an Uber ride into space. More than 4,000, or 20 percent, of NASA workers are opting to leave the agency, accepting the deferred resignation offered by the Trump administration to streamline government. The fact that the Trump administration scrapped the nomination of billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead the agency highlights a sense of crisis and lack of direction.