NASA has announced that a 34-year agency veteran, and graduate of the University of Alabama, will take the top job at the Marshall Space Flight Center. The space agency’s administrator Jared Isaacman has named Stephen Cash director of Marshall. His first day on the job is today.
Cash is a veteran NASA engineer and aerospace executive who first joined the agency at Marshall in 1982. He spent 34 years with the agency. Cash served as manager of the Marshall Space Shuttle Propulsion Office and then as director of Marshall’s Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate from 2011 until his retirement in 2016.
After NASA, Cash continued working in aerospace while serving as the vice president for advanced systems at Axient. That’s defense, space, and technology company that provides systems engineering, mission support, cybersecurity, and digital solutions for government and commercial agencies. Cash was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 2024.
NASA said that as the new director, Cash will oversee one of its largest field centers with over 5,000 civil service and contractor employees. Marshal plays a central role in the U.S. Space Program. The facility designed, tested, and builds NASA’s new big Space Launch System rocket that propels the agency’s Artemis spacecraft on its trips to the moon. Marshall has also test all of the engines for the U.S. space effort, going back to Apollo.
Marshall was central to Alabama Public Radio’s coverage of the Artemis-2 mission, which sent astronauts back around the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. A retired Apollo and Space Shuttle engineer was called back into service to mentor NASA’s next generation of rocketeers working on Artemis. On the darker side, a Marshall propulsion manager, Lawrence Mulloy, reportedly ignored the concerns of contract engineers at space shuttle solid rocket booster builder Morton Thiokol, the night before the 1986 Challenger accident, which killed seven astronauts, including NASA’s teacher-in-space Christa McAuliffe. Mulloy denied news accounts of that incident.
The University of Alabama has a series of alumni who have played critical roles at NASA. In addition to Stephen Cash, astronauts Bob Hines and James Kelly are UA grads. Kelly served as space shuttle pilot for the critical “first mission” following the 2003 Columbia accident and also piloted the spacecraft during a second mission, which was to exchange long-duration crews on the International Space Station. Hines flew a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to the orbiting outpost to take part in Expeditions 67 and 68. UA graduate Robert Lightfoot also served as NASA longest acting administrator, retiring in 2018.
