Lorna Kenna’s day job is helping Americans return to the moon. As vice president and general manager of the Jacobs Space Operations Group at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., she leads the team working past logistical and COVID-19-related challenges to assemble the Artemis 1 rocket in the space agency’s vehicle assembly building for a scheduled launch in March.

Preparations for the Artemis program, which will land the first woman and person of color on the moon, include upgrades to launch facilities and systems.

When Artemis 1 takes off next year, there will be 90 people in the room on launch day. Two-thirds of them will be Jacobs engineers overseeing the launch sequence software they created.

As NASA works on a mission to send the first woman and person of color to the moon, ENR Editor-in-Chief Janice Tuchman exchanged emails with Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, to explore how diversity plays out in the agency itself.