Nicholas Skytland
Nicholas Skytland is a NASA engineer, designer, and entrepreneur. As Director of NASA's Open Government Initiative, he has a passion for engaging all generations in the adventure of space exploration and is continually working to help NASA embrace new technologies, increase public participation and innovate on how the Agency does business.
Combining elements of space exploration, science, technology, visual art and storytelling, Skytland is well known for many of his presentations promoting NASA, the human space program, participatory exploration and the Open Government initiative. Skytland has spoken to numerous audiences, including the Pentagon, the United Nations, Disney Imagineering and venues around the nation about NASA and the excitement of exploration and discovery. He is also co-creator of Open NASA, a collaborative experiment in open, transparent and direct communication about the American space program.
Skytland has worked at NASA for 10 years and currently leads the NASA Open Government Initiative. Prior to this worked as a project manager in NASA's Human Research Program, planning future exploration missions, designing the next generation space suits, and developing an open-source computational model to simulate human response to spaceflight. He has also worked in the Strategic Partnerships Office encouraging new partnerships and collaboration with industry, academia and other governments. Skytland started his career at NASA training astronauts for spaceflight missions in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.
In 2004, Skytland worked for the X PRIZE Foundation and was instrumental in the planning of the first privately funded, manned space launch of SpaceShipOne in the Mojave Desert. He has also worked in the space tourism industry at Zero G Corporation and coached people to experience the excitement of weightlessness during parabolic flight. Skytland also runs his own new media consulting company and has worked on a number of interesting projects, including co-founding SpaceAlumni.com - the first online network connecting leaders in the space industry.
Skytland holds a bachelor's degree from Valparaiso University in mechanical engineering, a master's degree from the International Space University in Space Studies and a MBA from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business.
We interviewed Nicholas in the lead up to his presentation at Gov2 conference.
Nicholas Skytland
Director Open Government Initiative, NASA, USA
