As a flight director during NASA’s Apollo missions, Gerry Griffin led several lunar landings and helped bring the crew of Apollo 13 safely back to Earth. Through these experiences, Griffin learned the value of teamwork in spaceflight—during dynamic moments, you absolutely have to trust your colleagues in the trenches.
During the Apollo era, contractors supplemented NASA’s workforce, but Mission Control positions remained NASA employees. Midway through the space shuttle era, Griffin was surprised to find many Mission Control jobs had gone to contractors. This year, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is reversing that trend by bringing 7,500 contract positions back into the agency as civil servants to rebuild “core competencies.”
Griffin welcomes the change: “I applaud Jared’s idea to get back to that kind of in-house capability and responsibility.” However, the initiative is not without controversy. Critics say it was rolled out hastily and has been disruptive. The largest affected contractors—Amentum, Jacobs Engineering Group, and KBR—provided thousands of contractors to NASA. They argue that departing from a successful workforce model introduces uncertainty as NASA embarks on returning to the Moon.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing