Personnel News: February 2012 Archives

NASA Administrator Announces Senior Leadership Changes

"NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Tuesday changes to his senior leadership team. Associate Administrator Chris Scolese was named director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Robert Lightfoot, director of the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will serve as acting associate administrator. Both will assume their new responsibilities on March 5."

Marshall's Robert Lightfoot Promoted To Acting Associate Administrator of NASA, WHNT

"Lightfoot's deputy, Gene Goldman, will serve as Marshall's acting center director."

Keith's note: I was deeply saddened to learn that my friend Russ Bardos has died. Russ and I worked at the Space Station Freedom Program Office in Reston. Any of you who worked with our rag tag bunch in Reston will know that a special bond developed between all who endured those crazy years.

In the following years Russ and I often talked about how we could make things better. His last job was as a consultant to Aerojet. I will miss that gravely voice on the other end of the phone line (and often on my voice mail) and that big smile (you know which one) and steely hand grip when we'd meet in person. Ad astra, Russ.

Arrangements below.

@WomenPlanetSci - @whymommy - Susan Niebur, astrophysicist/mother has passed away from breast cancer. See: http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/goodbye/

Anthony J. Calio, NOAA administrator

"Anthony J. Calio, 82, a physicist and former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who also had been a senior executive of NASA, died Jan. 14 at his home at Whidbey Island, Wash."

Roger Boisjoly, 73, Dies; Warned of Shuttle Danger, NY Times

"Six months before the space shuttle Challenger exploded over Florida on Jan. 28, 1986, Roger Boisjoly wrote a portentous memo. He warned that if the weather was too cold, seals connecting sections of the shuttle's huge rocket boosters could fail. "The result could be a catastrophe of the highest order, loss of human life," he wrote. The shuttle exploded 73 seconds after launching, killing its seven crew members, including Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher from Concord, N.H."