NASA official to discuss space agency’s future at Dec. 15 Baker Institute lecture

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

As the space shuttle program nears its end, NASA is set to undergo profound changes. Paul Hill, NASA Johnson Space Center’s director of mission operations, will describe a nontraditional partnership between a government agency and the private sector using NASA’s Mission Control as the model in a speech at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy Dec. 15.

	PAUL HILL

Hill’s presentation, titled “Safe and Cost-effective Space Operations in an Era of International Cooperation and Commercialization,” will begin at 6 p.m. in Baker Hall’s Kelly International Conference Facility.

Several recent events have led to an effort to increase international cooperation in space and to further develop commercial access to human low-Earth orbit. These efforts have both cost and technical drivers. Hill’s approach emphasizes win-win solutions that provide cost-effective support from existing government space program elements in critical technical areas with limited experience outside the government program.

Hill will describe the national asset that is Mission Control’s infrastructure: flight operations culture, cost history and innovations. He will propose a method to leverage those unique strengths for increased mission assurance in any human spaceflight program, whether government or commercial; to defer new infrastructure investment; and to preserve the critical skills needed for exploration outside of Earth orbit.

Hill received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University.

He became space shuttle and International Space Station flight director in 1996 and was responsible for the safe conduct of manned spaceflight missions. He has supported 23 shuttle and International Space Station missions as a flight director. Hill led the investigation team for the space shuttle Columbia accident; that group was responsible for detecting and locating early debris during entry, obtaining and analyzing all data collected by government agency sensors during entry and coordinating radar testing with the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Rice faculty, staff and students who want to attend must RSVP by e-mail (bipprsvp@rice.edu), by fax (713-348-5993) or on the Web at http://bakerinstitute.org/events/economic-realities-of-space-in-the-new-decade.