Above: Visitors to Space Center Houston view a gallery of space shuttle crew photos photos on Friday, Dec. 12, 2014. In 2001, NASA had nearly 150 active astronauts, but as of November, 43 active fliers remain.

Science writer Eric Berger discusses his investigation into the state of NASA.

This is the final story in a series that looks at the state of America’s space program. In this installment we assess the future of Johnson Space Center and NASA, and investigate how the space agency might get the leadership, stability and funding it needs to make its current plans work.

The new space rescue

mission: Saving NASA

The legendary Christopher Columbus Kraft, who lived up to his namesake by leading NASA to the moon, has grown old.

Severe lines crease his face, and Kraft’s fingers have gnarled. Earlier this year, just before his 90th birthday, sciatica forced him to adopt a cane and, more gallingly, to give up golf.

Still, he can accept what time has done to him. It’s harder to make peace with what’s become of NASA.

In the 1960s, President Kennedy gave Kraft, the agency’s first flight director, and NASA’s other leaders a blank check and told them to boldly go. They did. The Apollo guys chomped cigars and called the shots.

Those in charge today no longer sit behind flight control consoles, conquering space. They’re at desks in Washington, D.C., politicians and bureaucrats who micromanage the agency’s budget and repeatedly move the goalposts.

Kraft feels his modern-day counterparts at Johnson Space Center have been “victimized.”

“They’ve been forced to accept a lot of things they know damn well won’t work.”

For NASA to rebound, for Kraft’s beloved Johnson Space Center not to fade into obsolescence, Washington’s power brokers may have to sacrifice control, giving some back to the rocket scientists.

The idea could be a quixotic quest, but a 58-year-old Tea Party Republican from west Houston is eager to try.

John Culberson, an eight-term congressman who reveres the Apollo generation, is best known locally for opposing light rail. He loathes pretty much everything to do with President Obama. Yet beneath a pugnacious political veneer, there’s a child who grew up loving God and science and space. He still marvels at the wonders of all three.