President Donald Trump intends to nominate James Reilly, a former NASA astronaut and current technical adviser at the U.S. Air Force‘s National Security Space Institute, as director of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Reilly spent 13 years at NASA and participated in three of the agency’s spaceflight missions that recorded more than 856 hours over five spacewalks, the White House said Friday.
Prior to the space agency, he Prior to NASA, he worked as a chief geologist at Enserch Exploration, where he studied earth structures in places outside the U.S. such as Antartica and the Mexican Gulf.
He also held management roles at TAEUS and Mach 25 Management, as well as led academic activities at the American Public University System.
Reilly is also a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who helped instruct personnel and develop curriculum for space operation courses under the Naval Sea Systems Command’s engineering unit.
