“NASA was not created to do something again,” writes Lori Garver, the agency’s deputy between 2009 and 2013, in a Washington Post opinion piece. “It was created to push the limits of human understanding —to help the nation solve big, impossible problems that require advances in science and technology.”
And today, she adds, the impossible problem “is not the moon. And it’s not Mars. It’s our home planet, and NASA can once again be of service for the betterment of all.”