Mason Peck.

Technically speaking, the principle technology adviser to the NASA administrator isn’t a NASA employee. Mason Peck is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., who’s on loan to NASA through a two-year Intergovernmental Personnel Act agreement that went into effect Jan. 3.

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Dan Leone is the NASA reporter for SpaceNews, where he also covers other civilian-run U.S. government space programs and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He joined SpaceNews in 2011.Dan earned a bachelor's degree in public communications...