For more than six decades, NASA has been the world’s lodestar for exploration. We designed the rockets, trained the astronauts and landed on the moon when the idea was barely a decade old. But somewhere between Apollo 17’s dust cloud and today’s paperwork pile, we’ve lost the rhythm that made “We choose to go to the moon” more than just a speech.

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Walt Faulconer is president of Faulconer Consulting Group providing strategic planning, project management, systems engineering and business development solutions for civil, commercial and defense clients.