SR 151: JWST Update with Paul Geithner, Deputy Project Manager — Technical

This week I had a fun chat with Paul Geithner from JWST. We discussed the reasons behind all of the delays, what science JWST will do, and much more!

Paul's career at NASA began in 1991 when he was hired into the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Flight Systems and Servicing project at Goddard. He worked on HST's replacement gyroscopes and was the Instrument Manager for the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) optical correction instrument and the Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) scientific instrument.

Paul's involvement with Webb began in 1997 after the second HST servicing mission when he became the program's Mission Systems Engineer. He later served as the Webb Instrument Systems Manager and in 2002 went to NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. as the mission's Program Executive before returning to Goddard in November of 2006 as the Webb Observatory Manager. He became Deputy Project Manager - Technical in 2011.

His other professional work experience includes military service and private sector employment in consumer credit and in fiber optic communications. He has been keenly interested in science, engineering and space exploration throughout his life and he is an enthusiastic participant in public outreach.

Paul has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech (1984) and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia (1991). He likes building things and enjoys surfing, golfing and other outdoor activities. He is also the proud owner of a 1978½ Triumph Spitfire 1500 in Silverstone Racing Green (with with Arctic White stripes) which he loves bringing to local and regional classic car events.

Shoutout to Wes Struebing, explodingpancakes, and Pacman Seven for their SuperChats!

Our Dom's cheese of the week was Cabriolait. Check out Dom's Cheese for more delicious cheeses: https://domscheese.com/