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/