Trump Transition Team Adds Six More Members to NASA Landing Party – UPDATE

The President-Elect Transition Team (PETT) announced six more members of the NASA “landing party” today.  They will join Chris Shank, who arrived at NASA on Monday to begin assessing the status of NASA programs and operations in order to advise the incoming President on what issues require immediate attention.

The six new members are:

Greg Autry, University of Southern California.  Autry is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Entrepreneurship who “researches the role of the government in shaping the environment in which new industries and organizations emerge” according to the university’s website, which adds that he is a “serial entrepreneur in video games, computer services, Internet content, enterprise applications, health care IT and material upcycling.”

Greg Autry.  Photo credit:  USC website.

Jack Burns, University of Colorado.  Burns is a Professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder and director of the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR), a $6.5 million center of excellence funded by the NASA Lunar Science Institute.  He also is Vice President of the American Astronomical Society and previously chaired the Science Committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC).

Jack Burns (with the Moon in the background).  Photo Credit:  CU-Boulder website.

Steve Cook, Dynetics.   Cook is Acting President of Dynetics Technical Services and Vice President, Corporate Development at Dynetics.  He joined Dynetics in 2009 after almost 20 years at NASA where, from 2005-2009, he was Manager of the Ares Projects to build the Ares I and Ares V rockets for the Bush Administration’s Constellation Moon/Mars program.

Steve Cook.  Photo credit:  Cook’s LinkedIn page.

Rodney Liesveld, NASA (retired).  Liesveld is a former senior policy advisor in the NASA Administrator’s office for both Mike Griffin and Charlie Bolden.  Before joining NASA in 2004, he was Senior Manager, Space Systems, at TASC for three years following a long career in ballistic missile defense and national security space, including Deputy Director, Space & Nuclear Deterrence for the Air Force.  He retired from NASA in October 2016.

Rod Liesveld.  Photo credit:  Liesveld’s LinkedIn page.

Sandra Magnus, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).  Magnus is Executive Director of AIAA and a former astronaut who flew on two space shuttle missions STS-122 and STS-135 (the final shuttle mission) as well as on STS-125 and STS-119 on the way up to and back from a four-and-half-month stay on the International Space Station (Expedition 18).  Before joining NASA, she was an engineer at McDonnell Douglas.

Sandy Magnus.  Photo credit:  AIAA website.

Jeff Waksman, former research fellow for Rep. David Schweickert, R-Arizona.  Waksman performed his doctoral research on the Madison Symmetric Torus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and then worked at IBM’s Thomas Watson Lab for two-and-a-half years before joining Rep. Schweickert’s staff in August 2016.

Jeff Waksman.  Photo credit:  Waksman’s LinkedIn page.

 

Note:  This article was updated with the information about and photo of Mr. Liesveld.