PPE and the Cost of Forgetting

How NASA lost the plot on public-private partnerships—and may leave its billion-dollar spacecraft with nowhere to go.

NASA’s commercial space goose lies cold on the pavement, its final golden egg marked as evidence. AI cartoon by Space Curmudgeon

Before “PPE” became pandemic shorthand for masks and gloves, it stood for something else at NASA: the Power and Propulsion Element. A core component of the now-imperiled Lunar Gateway, PPE was supposed to embody the best of wha…