Jim Bridenstine will soon, as he promised, step down as administrator of NASA. He served in that position for just two and three-quarters years. But in that time, he has set America and her allies on a firm path to return astronauts to the moon.

Bridenstine’s nomination and the subsequent contentious confirmation did not bode well. The grilling that he got by Democratic members of the Senate Commerce Committee was like something out of “Advise and Consent,” but in this case, as one Republican member quipped, the question was, “Are you or have you ever been a conservative?”