James M. Knauf

Retired U.S. Air Force Col. James M. Knauf is the chairman of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Space Transportation Technical Committee. He served as deputy director of the Air Force's Expendable Launch Vehicle Program at the Space and Missile Systems Center and deputy director of space acquisition at the Pentagon before going to work for Booz Allen Hamilton and Scitor Corp.

The latest from James

  • A SpaceX Falcon 9 poised for the March 2017 launch of SES-9 from Cape Canaveral's SLC-40 launch pad. Credit: SpaceX
    Launch

    Op-ed | Falcon 9 incident illuminates ripples in space community pond

    Last week’s unfortunate but spectacular on-pad pre-launch destruction of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher and its AMOS-6 commercial satellite payload, and the response over the coming weeks, offers an opportunity to illuminate philosophical differences between the commercial, civil, and national security communities in how they deal with such catastrophes.