6 replies on “Biden NASA Transition Team”

  1. Pam Melroy is a great choice!! As a NASA (contractor) Safety guy I went to several briefings about the Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report which she presented. Several of us stayed after a couple of times to talk to her – that was drinking out a fire hose but was so enlightening. She really knows her stuff and can explain it in depth.

    There are some astronauts that would not be good choices for this role but they got a terrific, knowledgeable, relatable person this time. This maybe means that the Biden transition knows how to pick the right people.

  2. I don’t think Pam Melroy is heading the NASA transition team. The linked article from the Washington Post says she has a “prominent role”. But the article also has a link to the full list of all the transition team members. For NASA, that list has Ellen Stofan as the “team lead”. Which is interesting, since Dr. Stofan is firmly from the planetary science side of NASA rather than the human spaceflight side.

    Edit: While I was typing that, Keith edited the story and noted Dr. Stofan’s position on the transition team.

      1. Definitely. But on a related note, I looked up the names on the list I didn’t recognize, and they are interesting. It looks like Melroy is the only member with a strong, human spaceflight background. It looks like this transition team is heavily weighted towards people with backgrounds in science (astrophysics, planetary science and Earth science), and work promoting diversity and STEM issues. It’s also a very diverse team, and I’m impressed some of the people are relatively young. Unless there is more than one Shannon Valley at Georgia Tech involved in the field, she got her PhD last year. That sounds good to me; I’m one of the people who complain about the old, nearly-retired to long-retired people being the ones affecting policies which will primarily affect people one or two generations younger.

        1. Shannon is a great choice. She knows NASA from her service as a political appointee in the Office of Legislative Affairs for the Obama administration.

          For those unfamiliar with Dave Noble, he served on Obama’s NASA Transition Team, became Deputy Cheif of Staff at HQ, and went on to a high level position in the White House Office of Personnel. He is very well connected politically, and knows how Washington works.

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