Dr. Peter R. Kurzhals

Peter Kurzhals has more than 50 years of experience in human spaceflight, ranging from the creation of NASA to the early manned missions culminating in the Apollo missions and the moon landings, followed by the Space Shuttles, the International Space Station, and the new private space commercialization initiatives.

Kurzhals was at NACA when Sputnik was launched in 1957. While the Soviets celebrated, America quickly responded with the Space Task Group under Bob Gilruth, the man who led the formation of NASA and later sold John F. Kennedy on the idea that America should put a man on the moon. Kurzhals strongly supported those initiatives, and offered to help through supporting research on space stations at NASA Langley.

In 1969, Kurzhals was transferred to NASA headquarters as chief of the guidance and control branch, and soon was promoted to director of the Electronics Division, with a budget of $60 million per year and 500 employees at 10 NASA centers. Here, he managed the successful test of the Space Shuttle Digital Fly By Wire system on an F-8 experimental aircraft, the first flight of an all fly-by-wire system in the world. The technology was later adopted by virtually all commercial and military aircraft, as well as by space craft such as the Space Shuttle.

He also initiated NASA’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Program and the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program, which developed the precursors to today’s planetary rovers, such as the Curiosity ’bot now maneuvering itself around Mars.

From 1979 to 1980, Kurzhals was director of NASA’s Space Division, with a $100 million budget and 1,000 employees. From 1981 to 1984, he was assistant director of mission operations at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where he managed mission control center upgrades and led the transition to an online information capability to greatly reduce operating costs.

In 1984, Kurzhals went private, first at Booz Allen, where he developed a fully-automated Management Information System, an early version of Microsoft’s Outlook, for NASA. He joined McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co. in 1985, first as director of utilization and operations and then later as director of subcontracts for the Space Station Freedom project, with a budget of $400 million per year.

In 1992, he was promoted to director of Advanced Space Flight Programs, leading research into future human space exploration.

When Boeing Co. purchased McDonnell Douglas in 1995, Kurzhals was named director of product support for the International Space Station, managing a $600 million budget. He also served on the International Astronautical Federation’s Space Station Committee, and on the board of directors of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the National Management Association (NMA). Subsequently, he held executive positions at Boeing on both the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle programs.

By his retirement in 2011, Kurzhals served as director of systems and software for the Boeing’s Space Exploration Division, and had won many awards including AIAA Fellow, and Orange County (California) Engineer of the Year.