Mike Sander Interview
Mike Sander of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Our February 17 interview appears after Sander’s biography, which is impressive:
Mike Sander leads JPL’s efforts in support of NASA’s Exploration Initiative. He was project manager of the Mars Science Laboratory project, director of JPL’s Technology and Applications Directorate, deputy director of JPL’s Space and Earth Science Programs Directorate, and project manager of JPL’s Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar project.
Joining JPL in 1963, Sander has worked in various capacities in management and project organizations, including management of JPL’s Mission Control Center . His early career was spent processing science data from the first missions to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and beyond. From 1980 to 1985 Sander spent five years at NASA Headquarters in Washington, first as the deputy director of the Life Sciences Division and then as director of the Shuttle Payloads Engineering Division.
He has a bachelor’s degree in physics from Occidental College, is a three-time recipient of the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for his work on the Voyager mission, Spacelab One and the Spaceborne Imaging Radar C project, is an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and an elected member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
Pasadena Weekly interview with Mike Sander
Michael Collins: With the Obama Administration essentially delaying or cancelling the Constellation program, will this affect the Exploration Systems and Technology Office?
Mike Sander: Probably. We’ll probably end up involved in some other things. In fact, the kinds of things people are doing today are possibly not the things we’re going to be doing a year or so from now. I think what we’re seeing at the moment is the classical sort of American dialogue between the Administration and the Congress and I think that the guidance at the moment, what is law, is the Constellation program and in over the course of the normal budget process they will figure out what are the right things to do with human space flight. It’s been crystal clear, I think, in speeches and in writing that there is no backing away from human space flight but I think there’s a change in tone, an emphasis on innovation and technology that’s part of this budget story. I think that in one real way, JPL has always been about pushing back the frontiers and doing things that are more technically assertive and this, in the long run, I think will work well for the agency and JPL’s part of the agency.
