As NASA celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and looks forward to celebrating the 40th anniversary of man’s first footprints on the moon next year, I am marking my own anniversary of a sort. I have been a member of the NASA team for 35 years. As I reflect on my years as a civil servant in a relationship with NASA that means much more to me than just being an employee, I have had, and continue to have, a long-term, open-ended commitment to the agency in good times and in bad.

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