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 fingerswords, or non-words. Half the items had been studied and half were new items that had not been studied. Participants recorded their recognition responses on numbered answer sheets. They were instructed to circle "yes" if they recognized the item as one which had been studied and "no" if they did not. In the practice associative recognition tests, participants were presented with four pairs of words, names, or non-words. Half of these pairs were presented intact (i.e., the original pairings from the study phase) and half were presented in recombined pairs. In the recombined pairs, both items in the pair had been presented in the study phase but had been paired with different items. The task in the associative test was to circle "yes" if the pair was an