Under the leadership of Jared Isaacman, NASA is recalibrating its relationship with the world — not by withdrawing from collaboration, but by demanding that collaboration earn its place. In an era when China is achieving what even the Soviet Union could not, the agency is asking a harder question: not merely who wishes to partner with us, but what, precisely, does that partnership make possible? It is a shift from diplomacy as an end in itself toward a more exacting vision of shared purpose.