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When the director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center asked which of her leaders might be interested in a big job in America's return to the moon, Lisa Watson-Morgan said that she had watched around his desk.
Watson-Morgan's father was a graphic illustrator at Marshall in the 1960s, when Wernher von Braun ran the center. His father's illustrations hang on the walls of his office. One of these illustrations was a crew module.
"It seemed like a natural fit and a wonderful opportunity," Watson-Morgan said shortly after NASA's director Jim Bridenstine introduced him as the team's chief. will build the landing gear to send the astronauts on the surface of the moon in 2024.
The undercarriages are a missing link in the Trump administration's vision of quickly returning to the moon. NASA worked on a rocket system capable of reaching both the Moon and Mars, but the landing gear also had to be in motion.
NASA employees worked on some issues. Now, they form a 360-member formal team and they have a leader in Watson-Morgan.
If she feels the pressure of the job and the star, Watson-Morgan did not show it Friday at Marshall when she was introduced to the world on NASA-TV. She smiles as she shakes Bridenstine's hand as she walks towards the podium.
She has the qualifications to feel confident. Watson-Morgan is a 30-year veteran of NASA. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Alabama in 1991, followed by a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering and Systems in 1994 and a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Alabama. Engineering in 2008, both from the University of Alabama at Huntsville.
She received NASA's highest honors, including a Presidential Award in 2018, a Medal for Outstanding Achievement in 2010 and a Medal for Outstanding Achievement in 2001.
She and her husband have three children and live in Huntsville, her hometown. US representative Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, said Friday by praising his appointment.
"It's poetic that the cradle of the American space program is also the cradle of the project manager who will lead this effort …", he said. "She was born in our community and went to Butler High School.
"She is perfectly capable of taking charge of this project," said Brooks.
NASA's administrator, Jim Bridenstine, agreed. Watson-Morgan has "risen through the ranks" and "has a lot of credibility with the highest figures of NASA," he said. "We are very proud of her and her excellent work."
This opinion is widely shared. Eric Berger, respected writer in aerospace for the website ars technica, announced the news that Marshall had landed the landing program and that Watson – Morgan would lead it. He called it "a chief engineer of the center who, according to sources in Texas and Alabama, has an excellent reputation and is considered a good manager. "
In her new job, Watson-Morgan will lead employees from several NASA centers into a job she called Friday "a ferry system to transport the crew."
But his team will also test new technologies such as automatic landing and navigation lidar (laser distance measurement). Astronauts will need these tools on Mars where they will not be able to return home quickly in case of problems.
There is a lot to do and no time to do it, but Watson-Morgan was excited about his mission. "We are coming to a totally different place, and it's really crucial," she said. "The angles of the sun are totally different, so the landing is going to be totally different."
She dismissed the "summer made on this subject" argument about the mission of the Moon with the spirit and logic for which she makes herself known. "It's like saying I've been to the Plains, so I do not need to go to the Grand Canyon," she said.
Watson-Morgan wants his team to "merge the speed of industry and NASA's security expertise to reduce risk." Government employees will also keep "a vision of Mars and the future," while the rest of the team "trying to sprint on the moon. "
She is not worried about the competition between Marshall and Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston for the role of leader. She pointed out that Johnson's mission was to get the astronauts out of the moon once their mission was over.
"I have a lot of friends at the Johnson Space Center," she said.
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