WSC 2005 Final Abstracts

Monday 8:30:00 AM 10:00:00 AM
Keynote Address
Chair: Brad Armstrong (Certain Teed)

The Role of Simulation in Spaceflight Missions
Colonel Nancy J. Currie (NASA Johnson Space Center)

Abstract:
NANCY J. CURRIE, Ph.D. has over 24 years of experience in aviation, space operations, and human factors and safety engineering. A career Army Officer and Master Army Aviator, she has logged over 4,000 flying hours in a variety of rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft. She received a bachelor's degree, with honors, in biological science from The Ohio State University in 1980, a master of science degree in safety engineering from the University of Southern California in 1985, and a doctorate in industrial engineering with an emphasis in automated systems and human factors engineering from the University of Houston in 1997. Currie joined the NASA's Johnson Space Center as a flight simulation engineer in 1987. Selected as an astronaut in 1990, she is a veteran of four space shuttle missions and has accrued 1000 hours in space. She was the Mission Specialist 2, Flight Engineer, on STS-57 in 1993; STS-70 in 1995; STS-88, the first International Space Station assembly mission in 1998; and STS-109, the fourth Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in 2002. Currie has served as chief of the Astronaut Office Robotics and Payloads-Habitability branches, chief of JSC's Habitability and Human Factors Office, and Senior Technical Advisor to JSC's Automation, Robotics, and Simulation Division. She has contributed to the design and development of flight hardware and software, training devices and simulators, and operational procedures for Space Shuttle and International Space Station robotic systems and assisted in the development, testing, and evaluation of human-robotic systems interfaces for advanced robotic systems. Following the Columbia tragedy in 2003, Currie was selected to lead the Space Shuttle Program Safety and Mission Assurance Office assisting with NASA's Return to Flight efforts. In early 2005 Dr. Currie retired from the U.S. Army and accepted a position with Jacobs Sverdrup as the Vice President and Deputy General Manager of the Engineering and Sciences Contract Group, supporting the JSC Engineering Directorate.