NASA, Artemis space programme and the imperatives of a merit-based system, by Osmund Agbo This essay is inspired in part by my recent encounter with a scientist and director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). For starters, National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA for short is an agency of the US government responsible for America’s space program and aeronautics research. JPL is NASA’s research and development arm, located in Pasadena, California and managed by California Institute of Technology, CALTECH. The centre produces spacecrafts called Rovers used in extraplanetary explorations. It turns...