Retired Air Force test pilot and former NASA astronaut Pam Melroy is a veteran of three space shuttle flights—and the second woman to ever command one.
Drawing from more than 38 days in space performing risky assembly missions to help build the International Space Station, Melroy spoke in Washington Tuesday about the recent but timely creation of the U.S. Space Force, and the challenges public and private entities must address to accelerate the potentially promising future of commercial space flight.
“I am very worried about conflict in space, but unfortunately, I kind of joke that everything goes from zero to classified in under a second in space—and so there’s a lot of things that are not discussed that are disturbing,” Melroy said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I think that there are things that we really do need to be worried about, and so ... having a plan, and especially for me, watching the barriers crumble between civil, military and commercial space in terms of an integrated strategy for our country is incredibly important.”
Melroy also served in the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation and as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Deputy Director of the Tactical Technology Office. But before all that, she launched her career as a test pilot in the Air Force, a branch of the military that honed in on critical space initiatives for decades before the establishment of the Space Force. Melroy explained that many Air Force insiders rotate between strategic air and space-focused efforts—but she’s also seen how there can be a much higher level of priority placed on the aviation side of initiatives within the branch.
“So, I th ..
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