The other eight members of the new Presidential Commission on the Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy (hopefully to be known by the shorthand name "Aldrige Commission") have been announced:

• Pete Aldridge
  
  
  • Former Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics;
    
  • Past service as Secretary of the US Air Force, senior management associate at OMB, and in a variety of other Department of Defense roles, focusing on strategic planning, management of Air Force space programs, and reconnaissance operations;
    
  • Astronaut trainee, August-November 1985. Would have been payload specialist on first Shuttle launch from Vandenberg;
    
  • Past employee of The Aerospace Corporation, McDonnell Douglas, LTV Aerospace;
    
  • Board member of Lockheed Martin;
    
  • GAO: E.C. Pete Aldrige Biography.
    
  
  
• Carly Fiorina
  
  
  • Chairman and Chief Executive of Hewlett-Packard (bio);
    
  • Notable for pushing through the 2002 HP-Compaq merger against stockholder opposition;
    
  • Previously with AT&T and Lucent Technologies;
    
  • Bachelor’s degree in medieval history and philosophy from Stanford University; MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland at College Park, Md; master of science degree from MIT’s Sloan School.
    
  
  
• Michael P. Jackson
  
  
  • Former Deputy Secretary at Department of Transportation;
    
  • Former Chief Operating Officer at Lockheed Martin IMS’s Transportation Systems and Services;
    
  • Senior Vice President and Counselor to the President of the American Trucking Associations;
    
  • Researcher at the American Enterprise Institute;
    
  • Taught political science at the University of Georgia and at Georgetown University.
    
  
  
• Laurie Ann Leshin
  
  
  • Planetary geochemist and associate professor of geological sciences at Arizona State University (alumni profile);
    
  • Director of ASU's Center for Meteorite Studies;
    
  • Member of Mars Polar Lander mission team;
    
  • Teaches classes in spacecraft mission design;
    
  • Author of paper estimating an abundance of water on Mars, based on studies of deuterium in Martian meteorites;
    
  • Falls on the humans or humans-and-robots side of the humans-robots debate. Has significant professional focus on Mars.
    
  
  
• Gen. Lester Lyles
  
  
  • Former commander, Air Force Materiel Command;
    
  • Former director, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). Clementine mission to the Moon was conducted during his tenure;
    
  • Official BMDO bio.
    
  
  
• Paul Spudis
  
  
  • Visiting scientist with the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston;
    
  • Deputy Leader, Clementine Project Science Team;
    
  • LPI homepage (bio and resume material);
    
  • Author: The Once and Future Moon (science).
    
  
  
• Neil deGrasse Tyson
  
  
  • Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
    
  • Astrophysicist and Director, Hayden Planetarium, New York City.
    
  • Member, Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry (Walker Commission);
    
  • Research interests: structure of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the formation of stars, supernovas, and dwarf galaxies.
    
  • AMNH website .
    
  • Curriculum vitae.
    
  • Visiting research scientist in the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton University;
    
  • Author/Co-author: Cosmic Origins, Cosmic Frontiers: Astronomy at the Cutting Edge, The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist (Memoir), One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos (available online here), Just Visiting this Planet, Universe Down to Earth, Merlin's Tour of the Universe;
    
  • B.A. in Physics from Harvard University. Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia University;
    
  • Extensive work in public outreach and science education, particularly in inner-city schools in New York.
    
  
  
• Rep. Robert S. Walker
  
  
  • Former U.S. Representative (R-Pa, 16th District), former Chairman of the House Science Committee;
    
  • Chairman, Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry (Walker Commission);
    
  • Chairman of Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates, an independent unit of international public relations firm Hill and Knowlton, Inc. (hmm...);
    
  • Lectures at the Brookings Institution, the Georgetown University Government Affairs Institute, the Kennedy School at Harvard University, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Center;
    
  • Board member of the Aerospace Corporation, SpaceDev, and the Space Foundation.
    
  
  
• Maria Zuber
  
  
  • Mars scientist, E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Head of Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences;
    
  • MIT homepage;
    
  • Personal homepage (CV and publications);
    
  • Involved with Dawn Mission to Vesta and Ceres, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission, MESSENGER Mission to Mercury, NEAR Mission, MGS MOLA, BMDO/NASA Clementine Mission, Mars Observer Mission.
    
  
  

In abstract, the board is made up of a mixture of government, industry, and academic types. The academics represent each of NASA's non-aeronatics threads (space science, human exploration, educational outreach). There is a heavy defense representation on the government side, along with connections to the legislative branch (particularly the House, which controls the purse). Mars exploration is as well represented as Lunar exploration (if not better) and astrophysics and astronomy, with practically zero representation for non-aligned manned pursuits such as space medicine and ISS science. Aldridge himself is the only person on the board with a significant link to Shuttle. There appears to be little expertise among the nine with manned spacecraft design or mission planning, but plenty of experience with missile (ie: launcher) design and robotic mission planning and instrument design.

The most interesting appointments, I think, are Leshin and Zuber. Much (perhaps most) of their professional work has involved Mars, and this makes me a bit more comfortable that Mars will be kept in focus as the end-goal of this new policy as the policy's particulars are ironed out.

Posted by T.L. James on January 31, 2004 06:25 AM