Jim Kennedy, Class of 67
HEAD OF KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
Jim Kennedy (’67) plans to see NASA return humans to the moon from his home in Cocoa Beach, enjoying life with his wife at their beachside place there.
After more than 35 years of public service, Kennedy retires this week as the director of the Kennedy Space Center and gives way to former space shuttle program manager Bill Parsons. Parsons takes over as the center's ninth director on Jan. 3.
"I take great pride in having been a part of the KSC family," Kennedy said via e-mail last week, specifically noting how that family rebounded from the loss of space shuttle Columbia and seven astronauts on the way to a landing here Feb. 1, 2003.
It was about six months after the accident that then-administrator Sean O'Keefe tapped Kennedy to come lead the center through the return to flight of the space shuttle fleet. The accident investigation report, issued about two weeks before Kennedy got the job, leveled harsh criticism at agency management including the safety checks in place here at the shuttles' home base.
So, the new boss had a serious challenge from his first day on the job. In the end, Kennedy's team safely launched the shuttle on a return-to-flight mission in 2005, helped implement additional changes and then pulled off three missions this year.
Kennedy often called this his dream job. He graduated from Cocoa Beach High in 1967 and his father was a space worker. While living here, he attended the same church as astronaut John Glenn. In 1968, he stuck his foot in the proverbial door by landing a spot as an engineering co-op student and got to work on three Apollo launches that carried men to the moon.
After college, he returned to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. In Huntsville, Kennedy got a chance to help design the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. He spent more than two decades at the center, managing the shuttle booster project and the X-34 spaceship project. He ultimately became deputy director of the center before O'Keefe asked him to return to his home to run KSC, to an office on the same floor of the same building where he started as a co-op. He has never been afraid to admit that job intimidated him at first.
Among the big milestones Kennedy led the center through:
- KSC was hit by and recovered from three hurricanes that did $100 million in damage in 2004.
- Launches of robotic probes toward Mercury, Mars, Pluto and a comet as well as the Spitzer Space Telescope.
- The launch of four shuttle missions under tougher, more complicated post-Columbia safety enhancements.
Perhaps most notably, Kennedy also led the first stages of the transformation of the center from shuttle port to moon port. Facilities are being modified to handle two new rockets and a new spacecraft being developed to launch people and cargo to the moon and ultimately Mars.
"The future is bright," Kennedy said last week, a line he repeated again and again in recent years, but one that fit his personality as a tirelessly optimistic and enthusiastic man.
In a video recorded this month just before his departure, Kennedy almost choked up when he concluded, "I am proud of this place, mighty proud of this place."
A look back at KSC Directors
Kurt Debus: July 1962
Lee Scherer: January 1975
Richard "Dick" Smith: September 1979
Forrest McCartney: September 1986
Robert Crippen: January 1992
Jay Honeycutt: January 1995
Roy Bridges Jr.: March 1997
James Kennedy: August 2003
Bill Parsons: January 2007
Highlights of Kennedy's tenure
- August 2003: Jim Kennedy, deputy director of Marshall Space Flight Center, is named head of Kennedy Space Center. Two weeks later, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board issues a stinging report citing mismanagement as the cause of Columbia disaster.
- January 2004: President Bush directs NASA to shift its mission to returning humans to the moon and then sending explorers to Mars. He orders retirement of the shuttles by 2010 and fly a new spaceship by 2014. Kennedy says KSC will be the launch site.
- July 2005: Shuttle Discovery blasts off on the first shuttle mission since 2003. Foam loss grounds the fleet another year.
- February 2006: Bill Parsons is hired as Kennedy's deputy director of the space center.
- May 2006: Jim Kennedy says he will retire from NASA after 35 years of government service, ending his tenure by Jan. 1.
- July 2006: Discovery again returns the fleet to space and video appear to show foam-debris problem is under control.
- September 2006: Shuttle Atlantis flies to the space station and resumes construction for the first time since 2002. This same month, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin announces deputy center director Bill Parsons will succeed Jim Kennedy.
- December 2006: Discovery flies the third space shuttle mission in six months, returning the fleet to a normal flight rate. Kennedy spends his final shuttle mission as center director tutoring Parsons on his new role. His tenure ends.
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| Inside the Launch Control Center, Jim Kennedy congratulates the launch team after the Sept. 9 liftoff of shuttle Atlantis. |