Updated 8pm with comments by Beyer and Bridenstine.
WASHINGTON – The White House announced on April 16 that it would nominate former astronaut Pam Melroy as NASA’s Deputy Administrator.
Melroy’s nomination was one of eight the White House announced to fill positions across the government. The position must be confirmed by the Senate.
Melroy will be second-in-command of the agency, behind Bill Nelson, the former senator appointed by the White House as administrator of the agency on March 19. Nelson will testify for his nomination during an affirmative hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee on April 21, and he is expected to get confirmation by the full Senate easily later.
‘It’s a great honor to be nominated by President Biden to support Senator Nelson and help lead NASA. “The agency is critical in America’s fight to combat climate change and maintain leadership in space,” Melroy said in a statement from NASA on her nomination.
“I believe Pam Melroy will be an excellent partner in helping NASA lead,” Nelson said in the same statement. “Pam has the years of technical and leadership experience that will help NASA explore the cosmos, expand climate change research, and ensure that NASA-developed technologies benefit life here on Earth.”
Melroy, who served on the incoming Biden administration’s NASA transition team, was considered a leading candidate to be nominated for the NASA administrator. After the White House announced that he would nominate Nelson, she emerged as the possible choice to be deputy administrator. Melroy was also considered a candidate for the NASA Deputy Administrator in 2013 after the departure of Lori Garver, but the Obama administration instead nominated Dava Newman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Melroy, an American Air Force test pilot, was part of the NASA astronaut class of 1994. She flew on the STS-92 and STS-112 shuttle missions in 2000 and 2002, respectively. She commanded the STS-120 shuttle mission in 2007, and was the only woman after Eileen Collins to command a shuttle mission. All three missions are dedicated to the composition of the International Space Station.
She left NASA in 2009 and worked for Lockheed Martin before returning to government. She serves as Deputy Co-Administrator for the Federal Aviation Commercial Space Office and subsequently Deputy Director of the Tactical Technology Office for the Agency for Advanced Defense Research Projects. Recently, she has been working as a consultant, among other things to support the new Australian space agency. She also serves on the user advisory group of the National Space Council.
As with Nelson’s nomination, the White House’s nomination of Melroy received widespread praise. “It’s an excellent choice by the president. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to consider this nomination quickly so that NASA can have a confirmed leadership team at this crucial moment, ”said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), Chair of the House subcommittee, said in a statement.
“I am very pleased to see that the government in Biden has appointed Colonel Pam Melroy as Deputy Administrator of NASA,” former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. ‘Pam is a friend and I believe her experience as an aviation test pilot, deputy director of the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA, and the spacecraft commander will serve her well if NASA returns to the Moon under the Artemis program. I call on the Senate to confirm her quickly. ‘
In the NASA statement, Melroy was enthusiastic about returning the agency as its deputy administrator. “This year, NASA will test the first human deep-exploration program since Apollo, launch the James Webb Space Telescope, test the first all-electric X-plane and further technologies to take humans to Mars,” she said. “And the way to do that is as a team that honors diversity in every dimension!”