Recently appointed Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Director Patrick Scheuermann believes there is a buoyant future for the Alabama facility, citing the Center\u2019s role with the Space Launch System, whilst noting commercial companies who are \u201cserious\u201d about space, should consider partnering with Huntsville\u2019s engineering base.\n<\/p>\n
MSFC Boss Buoyant:<\/p>\n
Replacing the popular Robert Lightfoot \u2013 who left to take up the role of associate administrator at NASA Headquarters \u2013 Mr Scheuermann is now entering his first full year at the helm of Marshall.<\/p>\n
Marking the start of what will prove to be another challenging year for NASA, Mr Scheuermann is in a positive frame of mind for his Center\u2019s forward path, citing the three key areas MSFC is involved with, all of which are at the very heart of NASA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to ensure that the workforce understands that we have incredible clarity in our mission,\u201d Mr Scheuermann remarked on his short term goals for Marshall in a Q&A published by the Center.<\/p>\n
![\"ISS](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Z191.jpg\" "\\"ISS")
\u201cThe NASA administrator has said time and time again there are three priorities for the agency: the Space Launch System, International Space Station, and the James Webb Space Telescope. Marshall Space Flight Center plays a role in all three.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, if we\u2019re looking for clarity in our mission and what we should focus on, we have it. My job is to continue to make sure the employees understand and embrace that because we have an incredible future and a future that, quite frankly, is in our own hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
And those three key areas are enjoying varying levels of success.<\/p>\n
NASA educational resources (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n The ISS is now assembled and into utilization \u2013 with its lifespan likely to be stretched out as far as 2028. The JWST- despite its funding and schedule struggles of previous years \u2013 now appears to be on a smoother development path. And the SLS program is enjoying an on-schedule development cycle, now heading to the Critical Design Review (CDR) phase.<\/p>\n Uncertainty with long-term NASA funding projections is usually the elephant in the room when the Agency\u2019s future goals are under evaluation, with Mr Scheuermann acknowledging his greatest challenge will be the protection of the smooth development path for key projects, such as SLS, when money is tight.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the biggest challenge we will face in both near and long term is you are never going to have all the resources that you absolutely need to do a job. We have an economy where all of us as taxpayers should look for any and all efficiencies that we can bring to the table to get our job done with fewer resources.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not going to be a magic wagon filled with a whole bunch of gold that comes to us. (However,) the good news is that Marshall has been known for doing incredible things in the past, and I don\u2019t think there is any difference in the future for what this workforce can do. We have a very clear picture of the set of requirements, and I think we\u2019ve identified and been funded with the resources necessary to execute the mission safely.\u201d<\/p>\n With NASA\u2019s future now refocused on Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO) exploration, Mr Scheuermann noted he is positive about the keys being handed over to commercial space for access to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), allowing NASA \u2013 and specifically Marshall \u2013 to concentrate on BEO enablers such as SLS.<\/p>\n In fact, Mr Scheuermann believes MSFC has been a facilitator of commercial space, by nature of the center\u2019s involvement throughout the history of NASA\u2019s space flight programs.<\/p>\n With Marshall\u2019s history in mind, the MSFC Director hopes that the commercial industry will recognize the benefits of MSFC, calling on all companies who are \u201cserious about the space business\u201d to consider partnerships with MSFC and engineering assets in the Huntsville region.<\/p>\n \u201c(Such partnerships) take advantage of the government\u2019s investment in knowledge and skill base to facilitate commercial space,\u201d Mr Scheuermann added.<\/p>\n \u201cAs new partnerships are formed, the fact is reinforced that if you\u2019re serious about getting into the space business, Huntsville \u2013 which has the highest number of engineers per capita \u2013 and the Marshall Space Flight Center are where you should consider partnering.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t imagine an agency that doesn\u2019t have Marshall Space Flight Center in it.<\/p>\n \u201cTo the public, NASA is mostly associated with putting people in space and the center that facilitates or enables that is the Marshall Space Flight Center. Marshall has played a major role in many missions from Apollo to the shuttle to the Space Launch System as well as leading science efforts on the space station.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the time will continue to testify to the fact that Marshall Space Flight Center has led the way in spaceflight and we look forward to continuing that.\u201d<\/p>\n (Images: NASA and L2)<\/p>\n (NSF and L2 are providing full exploration level coverage, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS\/CRS\/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles.)<\/p>\n (Click here to join L2: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently appointed Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Director Patrick Scheuermann believes there is a buoyant future for the Alabama facility, citing the Center\u2019s role with the Space Launch System, whilst noting commercial companies who are \u201cserious\u201d about space, should consider partnering with Huntsville\u2019s engineering base. MSFC Boss Buoyant: Replacing the popular Robert Lightfoot \u2013 who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7796,8906,624],"class_list":["post-39924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial","tag-msfc","tag-sls"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"SLS](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Z561.jpg\" "\\"SLS")
Interestingly, SLS\u2019 future does lack clarity past its first two missions, as NASA managers continue to suffer from what sources claim is political-level stalling, relating to the release of a definitive exploration roadmap.<\/p>\nSee Also<\/h4>\n
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![\"Dragon](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Z79.jpg\" "\\"Dragon")
\u201cI think (NASA\u2019s reliance on commercial companies to get us to low Earth orbit (LEO) is going to affect MSFC in a positive way,\u201d he claimed. \u201cSpaceX and Orbital Sciences are well on their way to providing that stop-gap, if you will, because we have to put our precious resources into going beyond low Earth orbit, which is the Space Launch System.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"MSFC](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Z314.jpg\" "\\"MSFC")
\u201cMarshall has facilitated a lot of commercial success that not a lot of people know about, but it goes on daily here at the center. The bottom line is, just like in the early voyagers, Marshall led the way with Apollo and shuttle to get a reliable path to LEO. That is a well-worn path and it\u2019s time for us to push further.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"MSFC\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Z48.jpg\" "\\"MSFC\\"")
Continuing to note Marshall\u2019s historical involvement with NASA programs \u2013 at least the ones that didn\u2019t suffer from a cancellation further down the line \u2013 Mr Scheuermann believes MSFC will be around, as long as NASA is in the business of putting people into space.<\/p>\n