NEWS

Montana native in running for top NASA post

Tribune Staff

A native Montanan who grew up in Helena is one step closer to becoming the second highest-ranking administrator at NASA.

On Thursday, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee unanimously approved the nomination of professor Dava Newman for NASA deputy administrator. Newman's nomination will now move on to the full Senate for a final confirmation vote. No date for a Senate vote on the nomination has been announced.

Newman is currently a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Obama administration nominated Newman to the position of deputy administrator Oct. 16, then refiled the nomination Jan. 8 after the new Congress convened.

"It's very exciting, and an enormous honor," Newman said in an MIT news release Oct. 17 about her nomination. "I look forward to doing the best work I can, to applying myself 100 percent, to learning a lot, and to advancing our national aerospace goals."

Newman is a graduate of C.R. Anderson Middle School and Capital High School in Helena. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and her master's degree and Ph.D. from MIT. She joined the faculty of MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, informally known as AeroAstro, shortly after receiving her doctorate in aerospace biomedical engineering in 1992. Since 2003, Newman has served as director of MIT's Technology and Policy Program.

Newman is best known for research on form-fitting spacesuits that use mechanical counterpressure to provide greater freedom of motion for astronauts than conventional suits. Her research has focused on how humans can more effectively work in weightlessness and reduced gravity environments.

"Ultimately, the big advantage is mobility, and a very lightweight suit for planetary exploration," Newman said in a Sept. 18 news release.

In 2008, she contributed to a report on the future of human spaceflight prepared by the Space, Policy and Society Research Group. That report endorsed the then-impending retirement of the space shuttle and an extension of the international space station to 2020. It also called for a "balance" in resources for exploration of the moon, Mars and other destinations.

More recently, Newman served on the technical panel that supported the National Academies' Committee on Human Spaceflight. That panel helped develop several different "pathways" for human space exploration, all leading to the long-term goal of humans on the surface of Mars, featured in the committee's final report published in June.

"Dava Newman is an incredibly accomplished Montanan who truly exemplifies our state's legacy of public service," Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., stated in a news release Thursday. "Dr. Newman is uniquely qualified to be NASA deputy administrator and I know she will execute and lead with honor and be prepared for whatever challenges may lie ahead."

The position of NASA deputy administrator has been vacant since Lori Garver stepped down in 2013 to become general manager of the Air Line Pilots Association. News of Newman's potential nomination to the post was first reported Oct. 8 by NASA Watch.