ByGeorge! Online

March 18, 2003

Logsdon Named to NASA Shuttle Investigation Board

By Eric Solomon

John Logsdon, director of the Elliott School of International Affairs’ Space Policy Institute, has been selected by NASA to join the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Admiral (ret.) Harold W. Gehman, Jr., chairman of the board investigating the disaster of the space shuttle Columbia, recently announced the appointment of Logsdon along with two other prominent experts including Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

“I hope that my long career as an independent scholar and analyst of space issues can help the board put the Columbia accident in the historical perspective of national policy regarding human space flight and can help frame the needed debate over the future of that policy,” says Logsdon, professor of political science and international affairs.

The independent panel investigating the loss of the space shuttle Columbia has grown from its original eight members of mostly government and military officials to include Logsdon and four other individuals from outside the government. 

A recipient of the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, Logsdon is a member of the NASA Advisory Council and the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee of the US Department of Transportation.

Logsdon is the author of “The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest” and general editor of the eight-volume series “Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the US Civil Space Program.”

GW’s Space Policy Institute is one of the few places in the world providing focused research and analysis attention to space policy issues and offering graduate courses in space policy.

 

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