If the candidate was verifiably a NASA engineer the person half assed it probably just didn't care. I'm surprised that person just didnt respond with a very intricate set of functions that resulted in a middle finger. That's honestly insulting to use that as a test for a senior. Clearly there was no vetting process prior to a coding evaluation and the hiring process needs a lot of work.
They worked for one of NASA's contractors, not NASA itself.
Have you been involved in the hiring process? Most of the people actively looking for work don't have a job for a reason. It's not 'insulting' to see if you can even vaguely do the job in an interview.
There's only so much vetting you can do before the 'can you vaguely code your way out of a wet paper bag' step.
Also: you didnt used to work in Boulder recently, did you?
You sometimes have to be careful and look if people are overthinking the problem. I have been in interviews where I was desperately looking for an efficient solution for a problem and couldn't find one while the interviewer only wanted to get a simple for loop.
Having sat in that interview he wasn't overthinking it. Despite writing firmware for decades he had never heard of the modulus operator, and when we explained it to him, he didn't see the point of it.
Remember those people in college who contributed nothing to the group project, but still somehow squeked by with a C? Those people now have jobs, and some have impressive resumes, particularly from .gov contractors where less than mediocrity reigns unfettered.