The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is a cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material. Its responsibilities include the nation's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy conservation, energy-related research, radioactive waste disposal, and domestic energy production. It also directs research in genomics; the Human Genome Project originated in a DOE initiative. DOE sponsors more research in the physical sciences than any other U.S. federal agency, the majority of which is conducted through its system of National Laboratories. The agency is led by the United States Secretary of Energy, and its headquarters are located in Southwest Washington, D.C., on Independence Avenue in the James V. Forrestal Building, named for James Forrestal, as well as in Germantown, Maryland.
Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in North Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington, D.C., area. Lockheed Martin employs approximately 110,000 people worldwide as of January 2020.
United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It merged with the Raytheon Company in April 2020 to form Raytheon Technologies. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous areas, including aircraft engines, aerospace systems, HVAC, elevators and escalators, fire and security, building automation, and industrial products, among others. UTC was also a large military contractor, getting about 10% of its revenue from the U.S. government. Gregory J. Hayes was the CEO and chairman.
Norman (Norm) Ralph Augustine is a U.S. aerospace businessman who served as United States Under Secretary of the Army from 1975 to 1977. Augustine served as chairman and CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corporation. He was chairman of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee.
Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, USA, and operates from New Mexico. The company is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic‘s maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS Unity spaceship. Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010, but the date was delayed for several years, primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise.
Michael Douglas Griffin is an American physicist and aerospace engineer who served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering from 2018 to 2020. He previously served as Administrator of NASA, the U.S. space agency, from April 13, 2005, to January 20, 2009. As NASA Administrator Griffin oversaw such areas as the future of human spaceflight, the fate of the Hubble telescope and NASA's role in understanding climate change. In April 2009 Griffin, who has an academic background, was named eminent scholar and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C., with 80 other offices around the globe. The company's stated core business is to provide consulting, analysis and engineering services to public and private sector organizations and nonprofits.
Edward "Pete" Cleveland Aldridge Jr. is an aerospace engineer and former government official in the U.S. Defense Department. He was also selected as a payload specialist for the Space Shuttle mission STS-62-A, scheduled to launch in July 1986. The mission was canceled after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986, and Aldridge never flew.
The Aerospace Corporation is an American nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in El Segundo, California. The corporation provides technical guidance and advice on all aspects of space missions to military, civil, and commercial customers. As the FFRDC for national-security space, Aerospace works closely with organizations such as the United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to provide "objective technical analyses and assessments for space programs that serve the national interest". Although SMC and NRO are the primary customers, Aerospace also performs work for civil agencies such as NASA and NOAA as well as international organizations and governments in the national interest.
Robert Channing Seamans Jr. was an MIT professor who served as NASA Deputy Administrator and 9th United States Secretary of the Air Force.
Jamie Michael Morin is a former senior official in the United States Department of Defense. He was a private sector economist and research consultant before earning a Doctorate degree in political science from Yale University. He then served as a professional staff member on the United States Senate Committee on the Budget. Morin was Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation at the Department of Defense. Previously, he was Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, and served concurrently as Acting Under Secretary of the Air Force from 3 July 2012 to 28 April 2013. He joined The Aerospace Corporation in 2017 as executive director of the Center for Space Policy and Strategy and vice president of Defense Systems Operations.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a NASA infrared space telescope currently in development and scheduled to launch no later than May 2027. Roman was recommended in 2010 by the United States National Research Council Decadal Survey committee as the top priority for the next decade of astronomy. On 17 February 2016, WFIRST was approved for development and launch.
Dr. Mark J. Lewis is a senior American aerospace and defense executive with special expertise in hypersonics. He is currently the Executive Director of the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies Institute, following his role in the second half of 2020 as the acting US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and before that the Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Modernization. He was the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. from 2004 to 2008 and was the longest-serving Chief Scientist in Air Force history. He served as chief scientific adviser to the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Air Force, and provided assessments on a wide range of scientific and technical issues affecting the Air Force mission. In this role he identified and analyzed technical issues and brought them to attention of Air Force leaders, and interacted with other Air Staff principals, operational commanders, combatant commands, acquisition, and science & technology communities to address cross-organizational technical issues and solutions. His primary areas of focus included energy, sustainment, long-range strike technologies, advanced propulsion systems, and workforce development.
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a private spaceflight industry group, incorporated as an industry association for the purposes of establishing ever higher levels of safety for the commercial human spaceflight industry, sharing best practices and expertise, and promoting the growth of the industry worldwide. Issues that the Commercial Spaceflight Federation work on include, but are not limited to, airspace issues, FAA regulations and permits, industry safety standards, public outreach, and public advocacy for the commercial space sector.
David W. Miller is an American aerospace engineer who is the current Jerome Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics since 2015. He is currently on a leave of absence from MIT to be a VP and the Chief Technology Officer to The Aerospace Corporation. He has worked on multiple NASA projects and served as NASA Chief Technologist.
The Brooke Owens Fellowship is a paid internship and mentorship program for college undergraduate women seeking a career in aviation or space exploration. The fellowship was created to honor the memory of Brooke Owens, a pilot and space policy expert who died of cancer at the age of 36.
Michael P. Moses is an American aerospace engineer and aerospace industry executive. He was the Space Shuttle program Launch Integration Manager from 2008 until the conclusion of the program in 2011. Moses joined Virgin Galactic in 2011 as vice president of operations and was named president in 2016.
Beth Moses is Chief Astronaut Instructor and Interiors Program Manager for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo program, and is a Commercial Astronaut, as classified by the Federal Aviation Administration. She was the first woman to make a spaceflight on a commercially launched vehicle, the VSS Unity VF-01 flight of 22 February 2019. She was also part of the six-member crew that flew in the first fully-crewed test flight to space on July 11, 2021, aboard VSS Unity.
Sirisha Bandla is an Indian American aeronautical engineer and commercial astronaut, as classified by the Federal Aviation Authority. She's the Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations for Virgin Galactic. She flew on the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 mission which made her the second India-born woman to go to space and the fourth Indian ever to go past the line of space after Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.
Tina Westby Jonas is an expert in military, defense, and aerospace industries. She was an undersecretary of defense at the United States Department of Defense and had also served as chief financial officer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
