In his 25 years at the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, John Bailey has managed technology, communications, engineering, science and strategic business development at the facility. After serving as acting director since January, Bailey was officially named the space center’s director on April 29.
“One neat thing about Stennis Space Center is you get the opportunity to do a lot of different things,” Bailey observed.
The center comprises 13,000 acres, plus an additional 25,000-acre buffer zone. In addition to NASA, approximately 50 other entities are located there, including state and federal agencies, academia, and commercial enterprises. The center employs approximately 5,200 people.
“I’m managing and running a federal city,” explained Bailey, “and I’m kind of like the mayor of the city. It’s unique within NASA.”
One big challenge for Bailey is “managing the culture shift from where we were to where we want to be,” he said. “Most of the work is now commercial rocket testing, and a commercial company’s priority is time-to-market. It took some retooling to make this shift to being more flexible, more nimble, less bureaucracy.”
With the commercial sector as the main growth track for Stennis, Bailey is also responsible for developing new business. The high levels of security and privacy at the facility, including its considerable amount of restricted air space, are big selling points.
Coming from an Air Force background, Bailey maintains a strong interest in flight, and his other major responsibility is overseeing the rocket propulsion testing. Topping this list is the engines for NASA’s new Artemis program.
“We tested all the engines for the first four Artemis flights,” said Bailey. “Artemis 2 will send astronauts around the moon, and with Artemis 3, we will put boots on the moon.”
The publicity from these moon flights will help Bailey reach his goals of attracting more private sector rocket propulsion testing and expanding the federal city footprint.
“We really want people to know who we are and what we do,” Bailey concluded. “We do not want Stennis to be a best-kept secret.”
