Bryant Cramer
is responsible both for New Millennium Program (NMP) missions assigned to GSFC and for those GSFC missions that belong within the Office of Space Science theme known as the Structure and Evolution of the Universe (SEU). The NMP missions include the Earth-Observing #1 (EO-1) and the Space Technology #5 (ST-5). The SEU missions include GLAST, LISA, and Constellation-X.
Born: Springfield, Illinois
Education: Bryant rather enjoyed college in Chicago and stayed there for quite a while. He has a Bachelor of Chemistry from Northwestern, an MD from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in Engineering also from Northwestern. He also studied at the University of Freiburg in Germany.
On Family: Bryant and his wife, Mary Anne, live in Ellicott City, Maryland. They have three sons: William, Charles, and Benjamin
Life in NMP/SEU: Bryant is keenly interested in missions that are dependent on new technologies.
He joined the New Millennium Program shortly after its inception and has made a number of valuable contributions to the NMP in terms of how it implements technology flight-validations. Because of the new technologies assigned to them, these missions are unusually risky and require substantial risk management to be successful. The NMP/EO-1 mission was launched in November 2000 and has completed the fight-validation of its thirteen technologies in December 2001. It contains three imaging instruments and a number of supporting spacecraft technologies pertinent to Landsat follow-on missions. After 18 months in operation, the observatory is fully functional and has collected approximately four times the amount of imagery originally planned. The Office of Earth Science has initiated an EO-1 extended mission to provide the capabilities of this observatory to interested parties outside of the current EO-1 Science Validation Team.
Life before FPPD: Bryant came to GSFC in 1994 after Dan Goldin decided to move the Space Station Program Office back to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Mary Anne and the three boys decided that dad could go back to JSC if he liked but that they preferred Maryland to Texas. Consequently, Bryant joined the GSFC Systems Engineering Office and served as the Senior Systems Engineer on the EOS PM-1 Project. Mike Ryschkewitsch asked Bryant to accept a small, part-time assignment (2-3 hours per week) with the newly formed NMP in November 1995 and it's been downhill ever since.
Bryant joined NASA at the JSC in 1978 to estimate the operational impact of diminished hand-eye coordination on Orbiter crew after varying amounts of weightless exposure. At the time he was a Surgical Resident at the Baylor College of Medicine in the Texas Medical Center. Bryant had previously studied the physiological effects of simulated weightless exposure at the Naval Aerospace Medical Center in Pensacola, Florida during the period 1965-1972.
In 1980 Bryant went to NASA Headquarters as the Program Scientist of the newly established Life Sciences Flight Program and led the effort to define the payload of the first Spacelab mission dedicated entirely to life sciences. The following year he served as the Manager of the same program. In 1982 he joined the Space Station Task Force and held a number of positions in systems engineering culminating in managing the System Engineering Office at the time the Program Office was sent back to JSC in late 1994. As manager of the System Engineering Office, Bryant established the fateful liaison with Mike Ryschkewitsch, the then recently appointed manger of the System Engineering Office at GSFC.
Hobbies: Bryant spends his weekends managing the Junior Division of the Monumental Rifle & Pistol Club of Baltimore. This organization provides coaching and supervised practice for three-position smallbore shooting throughout the year for youngsters from the ages of 11 through 20 years of age. It is both a NCAA and Olympic sport. Bryant and the other coaches also provide firearms safety training to Boy Scouts, Young Marines, and other youth groups throughout the Baltimore area.
Nick Speciale/532
Education: Graduated from Manhattan College, New York in May 1983, Obtained Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins G.W.C Whiting School of Engineering in May 1986.
Experience: Hired at NASA-GSFC in June 1983 with Mission Operations and Data System Directorate. Served in increasing levels of responsibilities, Section Head and eventually Branch Head ,as part of Microelectronics Systems Branch (MSB) in Data System Technology Division through October 1997. Charter of MSB organization was to develop high rate ground system technology for upcoming EOS missions to meet emerging CCSDS standards. Branch (over 20 civil service and 70 contractors at peak) developed high rate technology (VLSI components, ground data processing boards and telemetry systems) which were deployed across a wide range of projects throughout NASA's ground system including Space Station, DSN, Terra, EOSDIS, SMEX, Explorer programs.
With reorganization of GSFC in Dec 1997, transferred to STACC and assumed Mission Technologist position with Earth Observing 1 mission. Lead advocate for flight validation of all technologies on EO-1 and lead for technology transfer and infusion of the technologies once flight validated. Also responsible for the development of the image data processing system for EO-1 and served as lead test and flight director during 9 months up to launch and initial checkout of spacecraft subsystems.
In April 2001, took on position as lead systems engineer on Landsat Data Continuity Mission and currently working insight into formulation phase activities and supporting development of the LDCM implemenation RFP.