Life comes at us faster than ever these days. Here are the trends I’m betting on for the coming year.
NASA Gets Its Groove Back
America’s storied space agency has been off course for years. Its flagship Space Launch System rocket is absurdly over budget and delayed; China looks like it will beat us back to the moon; and staffers have been whipsawed by budget cuts and erratic leadership. Fortunately, NASA finally has an administrator who understands the problems and knows how to implement solutions. Jared Isaacman’s nomination was temporarily derailed by White House politics. But the Senate finally confirmed the successful tech entrepreneur and private astronaut in December. It was the best Christmas present space fans could ask for.
Mr. Isaacman’s many supporters hope to see him navigate the necessary phaseout of the obsolete SLS rocket, cut the agency’s budget with finesse, grow its commercial space program to include more private vendors in addition to SpaceX and, yes, restore some of NASA’s Right Stuff aura. It’s a big job. But he’s the right guy to do it.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor.
Photo by Rafa Fernandez Torres/Getty Images