NASA Is Held Down by Its Own Bureaucracy:

Scientists said that the agency’s original sense of mission and can-do spirit had largely given way to a civil-service culture, with a maze of bureaucratic rules, overlaid by a risk-averse approach that permeated NASA after the Challenger explosion in 1986. As a result, these experts said, it was difficult to attract ambitious young talent.

Many point to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is affiliated with Caltech, as a place where innovation lives on.