NASA's Technology Mission Directorate is a $600 million enterprise created in 2013 to develop technologies the agency's larger exploration and science directorates will need to execute future missions. The White House would like the office to have more money than that, but a skeptical Congress typically has redirected substantial portions of the proposed Space Technology budget to pet projects including the heavy-lift Space Launch System. Steve Jurczyk, the former NASA Langley Research Center director who on March 2 took the reins of the Space Technology Directorate, is undaunted. The NASA-lifer has managed through his share of belt-tightening rounds at Langley and is no stranger when it comes to congressional advocacy.
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