But Will They Have A Program To Manage?
Just days after Senator Kay Bailey
Hutchison (R-TX) said NASA administrator Charles Bolden was
skirting the law to effectively kill the Constellation
program, the agency has appointed two new managers to oversee the
effort.
Lawrence D. Thomas has been appointed manager of NASA's
Constellation Program, which manages the effort to take humans
beyond low-Earth orbit and develop the next generation launch
vehicle and spacecraft. Charles M. Stegemoeller has been appointed
as deputy program manager. He and Thomas will be based at NASA's
Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Thomas most recently served as the deputy program manager of the
Constellation program at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center,
Huntsville, AL. He began his NASA career in 1983 as an aerospace
systems engineer at Marshall's Science and Engineering
Directorate.
He served in leadership positions at Marshall including manager
of the Systems Engineering and Analysis Office for the Second
Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle Program Office, and chief of the
Systems Engineering Division, Spacecraft and Vehicle Systems
Department. Thomas also spent two years at Johnson as manager of
the Vehicle Analysis and Integration Office in the International
Space Station Program.
Orion Crew Vehicle Artist's Concept
He earned a bachelor's degree in industrial and systems
engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville; master's
degree in industrial engineering from North Carolina State
University; and doctorate in systems engineering also from
Alabama.
Stegemoeller most recently served as director of the program
planning and control office for the Constellation Program. He
joined NASA in 1985 and served in several leadership positions
within the Space Station Freedom and NASA/Mir Programs at Johnson.
He was later named associate director for the Office of
Bioastronautics within the Space Life Sciences Directorate.
Stegemoeller earned his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering
from Texas A&M University, College Station.
NASA Image Ares I-X Launch
The previous program manager had been reassigned, prompting
Hutchison to call for an investigation in the Senate Commerce,
Science, and Transportation committee, of which she is the ranking
Republican. In an
e-mail dated May 21st, Bolden told then-program manager Jeffery
Hanley to place "the lowest priority on hardware that can solely be
used for the Program of Record." President Obama has called for the
Constellation program to be largely scrapped, leaving commercial
companies to take the lead in developing the next generation of
launch and human spaceflight vehicles.