Our Story
Every generation of explorers faces moments when the future hangs in the balance.
For NASA, one of those moments came after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.
The tragedy forced the entire human spaceflight program to confront a difficult reality: returning astronauts safely to space would require not only new technology, but new ways of thinking about risk, leadership, and decision-making.
Inside that effort were engineers and leaders responsible for solving problems that had never been solved before.
Among them were Dr. Jim Peters and Dr. Lou Carfagno.
Dr. Peters helped lead the integration and risk analysis that allowed the Space Shuttle fleet to safely return to flight. His work helped NASA transition from traditional certification approaches to modern probabilistic risk methods.
At the same time, Dr. Carfagno worked directly with astronauts preparing for the most demanding tasks in space—spacewalks assembling the International Space Station.
Former NASA Chief Engineer for Starlab and Commercial Crew Program Risk Manager.
Human spaceflight training and safety expert.