The Next Giant Leap - NASA Deputy Administrator Col. (Ret.) Matt Anderson ’97

America’s next giant leap will require more than rockets. It will require leaders.

SUMMARY

Long Blue Leadership Now welcomes NASA Deputy Administrator Col. (Ret.) Matt Anderson ’97, who shares the vision behind the proposed United States Space Academy and its potential role in preparing astronauts, engineers, scientists, operators and innovators for the challenges ahead. From the moon to Mars and beyond, Deputy Administrator Anderson shares how America can build the talent pipeline needed to lead in space for decades to come.

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 – Opening & Guest Introduction
Col. Walkewicz introduces Long Blue Leadership Now, frames the conversation, and presents Col. Anderson’s background and new role with the presidential commission on the U.S. Space Academy.

00:01:16 – Academy Roots & Early Aspirations
Col. Anderson reflects on coming to the U.S. Air Force Academy, family influence and his original plan to be a doctor.

00:02:23 – First F‑16 Ride & Career Pivot
Col. Anderson’s formative F‑16 flight at Luke Air Force Base, getting sick and deciding to pursue pilot training instead of medicine.

00:03:07 – Executive Order: What Was Just Created?
Explanation of the executive order, why it says “federal academy” not “service academy,” and the historical parallel to the creation of the Air Force Academy.

00:05:09 – Three Pillars of Space & Commercial Boom
Col. Anderson breaks down national security space, civil space (NASA), and commercial space, with examples like Starlink and launch/observation/communications.

00:07:48 – Opportunity & Access: Who Gets to Serve?
How the Space Academy may open doors for talented Americans who can’t serve in uniform (e.g., medical disqualifiers) but want to contribute through NASA and civil service.

00:09:35 – What a U.S. Space Academy Adds Beyond Existing Academies
Contrast with current service academies, focus on broader roles (astronauts, civil servants, scientists, entrepreneurs, operators, warfighters) and parallels to Merchant Marine Academy and Coast Guard Academy.

00:11:42 – New Majors for a Space Future
Why fields like astrobiology, heliophysics and nuclear engineering are critical; the Nancy Grace Roman and Hubble space telescopes; AI-driven data analysis and preparing for lunar/Mars missions.

00:15:30 – The 120‑Day Commission & 2028 Target
The nine mandated lines of effort, the tight 120‑day (target 90‑day) timeline, the December deadline and the goal of having the first class arrive in summer 2028.

00:17:35 – Core Values, Civic Mindset & Space Leadership
How core values and civic-minded service will be baked into the Space Academy, aligning with but distinct from traditional military academies.

00:20:23 – Governance, Commission Members & NASA’s Role
Who’s around the table (NASA, DoW leadership, White House staff), Col. Anderson’s “quarterback” role and NASA’s central responsibility as the civilian-led space agency.

00:22:42 – Matt’s Leadership Edge & Vision for 50 Years Out
Col. Anderson’s unique blend of biology, aeronautics and space experience; mental toughness for extreme environments; and how Space Academy grads will shape a competitive future in space vs. China and others

00:35:34 – Growing NASA’s Risk Culture & Closing Reflections
Offsite in Bozeman (skydiving, fighter flights), teaching leaders to understand astronaut risk, daily leadership habits, core values, work ethic, guidance for young leaders, public input and closing thanks.

 

ABOUT MATT ANDERSON

BIO

Col. (Ret.) Matt Anderson is the 16th deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The president of the United States nominated him for the position on Jan. 13, 2026, and he was confirmed by the Senate on May 18, 2026. 

Col. Anderson grew up on U.S. Air Force bases around the world as the second of three sons of Paul and Patricia Anderson. Paul served as a chaplain in the Air Force and Patricia served as a schoolteacher. 

After graduating from high school in New Jersey, Col. Anderson attended the U.S. Air Force Academy where he earned a Bachelor of Science in biology and served as the team captain of its nationally ranked Division I soccer team. He later earned a Master of Science in aeronautical science and a Master of Arts in leadership and counseling.

Col. Anderson is a decorated Air Force command pilot in multiple aircraft with more than 5,000 flight hours, including more than 650 in combat. He commanded the U.S. Department of War’s only nuclear airlift squadron and served as a senior United States Air Force fellow at the George C. Marshall Center in Garmisch, Germany. Throughout his 24-year Air Force career, he served on several senior DoW staffs and commanded at multiple levels before retiring in 2021.  

Since retiring from military service, Col. Anderson has served as the chief operating officer and chief growth officer at the Space Force Association and as a vice president at CACI International. 

Originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado, Col. Anderson and his wife, Christine, are proud parents of two daughters, Kayla and Lauren.  

Outside of work, he is an avid snow skier, golfer and hiker, and he is currently pursuing his A-license in skydiving. 

CONNECT WITH MATT

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz 0:04
This is Long Blue Leadership Now — timely conversations with our leaders that are shaping what happens next. I’m Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ‘99, and I’m joined by Matt Anderson, Class of 1997, NASA’s deputy administrator, and our new executive director of the Presidential Commission of the United States Space Academy. We’re here today because on Aug. 28, the president of the United States signed an executive order creating the commission, beginning the process of establishing a new federal academy focused on developing America’s next space leaders. As you can imagine, this announcement has generated a lot of interest and plenty of questions, and we’re going to talk about that today. Matt Anderson is a retired colonel from our Air Force, serving 24 years as a command pilot and leader. He logged over 5,000 hours, over 650 of those in combat. His career spans time in U.S. Transportation Command, Northern Command and Space Command. After retiring from active duty, Matt went on to lead as an expert in the aerospace industry as well as the Space Force Association. From there, he became NASA’s 16th deputy administrator, and he’s with us here today. Matt, thank you for being here.


The Hon. Col. (Ret.) Matt Anderson 1:16
Man, I’m honored to be here. Thank you for having me. This is awesome. I appreciate it.


Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:19
Oh my goodness, and it’s so timely, and I’m sure everyone’s ready for us to jump right in. But before we talk about an academy that will exist in the future, let’s start with the one that formed us right here at the Air Force Academy. So, Matt, you’re ’97 graduate. Let’s hear it.

Col. Matt Anderson 1:31
Keep it revvin’. Keep it revvin’.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:33
Keep it revvin’. Yes, soccer team captain. You know, biology major. Did you see yourself in NASA today? Like, did you already know this was going to happen?


Col. Matt Anderson 1:42
No, definitely not. No, definitely did not. I just kind of followed my passions like a lot of us did. And my dad was an Air Force officer for years and graduated from New Jersey at the time, McGuire Air Force Base, and was looking at schools out there, and then came on a recruiting trip, like many of us did for sports or other reasons, out to beautiful Colorado Springs. And I showed up — I’m like, “Man, I hope I get into this place because this is where I want to go.”

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:08
Oh, that’s amazing. So you had a little bit of kind of background. You wanted to come here. You know, when you went to the Academy, did it really kind of start to formulate some possibilities in your mind at that time, or was it just the path that your career took you, you know, post-Academy?

Col. Matt Anderson 2:23
Yeah, it sure did. When I was in high school, I was like, “I want to be a doctor.” Whenever we got to dissect things in class in high school and middle school, I was like, “That’s what I want to do.” So, came to the Air Force Academy. I was like, “I’m going to be a biology major because that’s the path to being a doctor.” And then spring break of my freshman year, went to Luke Air Force Base and got an F-16 ride.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:41
Ah, and it changed.

Col. Matt Anderson 2:42
Yeah, to be honest, I threw up all over the place. And I went with one of my classmates who is now a major general, Rick Goodman, the J3 down at Central Command. We both threw up, and he ends up being a fighter pilot, a Thunderbird pilot. Now he’s a two-star general. We both got sick. It was awesome and miserable at the same time. I left spring break, going, “The doctor thing is going to have to wait. I’m going to go to pilot training,” and was lucky enough to do that.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:06
Well, what an amazing career! When I talked about your career earlier, kind of how it spanned so many different facets. I think it really puts you in a unique position to be able to tackle this. And so maybe we should just jump right in. You know, we talked about this executive order. Can you share a little bit more? What does it actually establish? Let’s just kind of, you know, bring that forward for everybody.

Col. Matt Anderson 3:25
Yeah, executive orders aren’t new with administrations. It’s a way to look at what the nation needs, and this one is exactly what you said. It’s an executive order to establish a commission, and the commission is to look at the possibility and what it would take to establish a new federal academy. And the executive order used those exact words. It said a federal academy, not a service academy. So I think people, if they have questions, I really encourage them to go out and read the executive order. It’s very well written. The first paragraph kind of lays out the why and what it’s trying to do, and it specifically left out the words service academy. So while the president envisions it, and he talked about it in his speech, I think it was fantastic. His view of our service academies is so high. He just talks about the beauty of the land, the architecture, everything about it, and he goes, “I envision the new space academy to be on par or better than those.” And the reality is we haven’t established a new academy— this is the longest gap in our history that we’ve had between academies, if you look at it. And those academies were created throughout history for different reasons and we find ourselves in a space right now that, I think, ironically— if you look back, in 1947, the Air Force breaks away from the Army and they call it the Army Air Corps. And the nation is in what? The Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 4:35
That’s right.

Col. Matt Anderson 4:36
And we’re like, “We have got to establish this new air domain, its own service. It’s going to be so important.” So Air Force breaks away from the Army. Was there controversy back then? Of course there was. Of course there was controversy. But what happened seven years after that? In 1954, legislation was passed to establish the United States Air Force Academy.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 4:54
Here we are.

Col. Matt Anderson 4:56
Seven years afterwards, and that was done in April of ’54. So you’re like, OK, it takes a while for you get a commission, legislation, appropriations. But back then, 15 months later, the first class of the Air Force Academy entered class. Summer ’55. So now you look where we’re at today. Almost seven years ago, the Space Force broke away from the Air Force. So the same exact timeline back in the ’40s, and seven years later, now we’re looking at a legislation to establish the newest academy. So it’s very similar timelines for very similar reasons. There’s a need for it. There’s a global need for a space academy. Now, is it different with this EO that we’re seeing today? Yeah, it’s not a Space Force Academy. It’s the United States Space Academy. So when you look at the EO, it talks about what do we need to continue to have American leadership in space, and we did not have rockets launching every other day even 10 years ago. So today we’ve got American rockets launching from American soil literally every other day, and this commercial— so when we think about space, we think about national security space. There’s kind of like three pillars: national security space. So people think Space Force, National Reconnaissance Office, the intelligence community. That’s national security space. Then you have civil space, so civilian space. That’s NASA. That’s what we do. And there’s very clear title— just like we have Title 10 and Title 50 and Title 51 for NASA. There’s U.S. code that says you will do this, you will do this.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 6:21
Very clear.

Col. Matt Anderson 6:22
It’s very clear. So folks are concerned about blurring lines between civilian space and national security space, and you know we’re following the law. We have very clear lines there. But that third one is what has really been booming lately. And if you talk to junior high kids and kids in high school, it’s commercial space. Commercial space, and we have lots of Academy grads that are leading in commercial space. So when I say commercial space, what does that mean? Because people have different definitions. In other words, how do you make money as a company without a government customer? So if NASA is not paying for your stuff, if the Space Force isn’t paying for your stuff, can you make money just like every other company in the United States? Can you make money on your own? Are there other customers that will pay for those services? And the reality is, there is today. If you think about launch, so launching rockets for Starlink was a good example. So launch, observation and communication. Those are the three categories right now where we see lots of money being made, and what we hope to do is unlock another economy, like an orbital economy, a lunar economy on the moon. And when we look forward, these academies have always been throughout history— we have to look forward. You know, Wayne Gretzky always had a very famous quote. He says, "I don’t skate to where the puck is now. I skate to where it’s going to be.” And that’s why he was the greatest hockey player ever. That’s what this academy’s doing. This is looking at the future. We’re not trying to solve today. We’re trying to keep ahead of the world and continue American leadership in space, so we’re fired up. If you can’t tell…

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 7:48
Well, I was actually just going to say— so first off, that was a fantastic explanation. I think it was really helpful for you to share the different pillars of space, just to kind of for us to wrap our heads around it. And what I was going to ask you next— I could tell that you’re excited. Like, what most excites you about this?


Col. Matt Anderson 8:03
The thing that excites me, and the executive order actually addresses it is, this is going to open up new opportunities for Americans and for people to serve in a different capacity. We all know— I have a daughter who could not go to the Air Force Academy because she has a cashew and pistachio allergy. I’ve got friends that maybe have other diagnoses where they want to be patriots, they want to serve their nation, but military service for whatever reason— medically they’re not able to do it. This is an option to serve as a civilian in NASA or another civil servant position in our in our country that is related to space. And if, as the executive order says, if they choose to go into a national security role like the Space Force or the NRO or something like that, the executive order asks us to look at that. What would that look like? But it is clearly— it is a NASA civilian-led organization. NASA that’s leading this executive order, so that’s kind of how we see the plan. But I’m most excited— there’s a lot of kids in high school and junior high that are watching this excitement. They’re watching Starship take off and land with a chopstick catching it, and boosters coming down on a Falcon Heavy right next to each other. They’re like, “I want to be part of that.”


Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:06
And now they can.

Col. Matt Anderson 9:07
They can. This is an opportunity where it’s different than a civilian institution. You can go to the U.S. Space Academy and, hey, you have a guaranteed job at NASA when you graduate. That’s worth something.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:18
Got me excited.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 9:19
That’s worth something. And they’re like, “Oh, I want to be an astronaut one day. Well, maybe the way I work my way to be an astronaut is I work in NASA.” That’s not a crazy concept to work in NASA, understand the organization, get trained in undergrad, and then one day maybe be an astronaut.


Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:35
So maybe this is a question that tees from that pretty well. What then would this federal academy do that our current, you know, service academies aren’t doing? The Air Force Academy specifically, right? We do create Space Force officers that do have, I think, to your point, a focus on that. What will this actually solve?


Col. Matt Anderson 9:55
Yeah, I think it solves a lot of challenges. So when you think about a military academy, so right now about 10% of Air Force Academy graduates go into Space Force. So that’s about 100, right? If you think about a federal space academy, and the Executive Order talks about this, it says, "Hey, we want to develop a number of career fields,” if you will. Astronauts. It mentions astronauts, civil servants, scientists. OK, talks about engineers. It says entrepreneurs, operators, warfighters. There’s like seven that it mentions, but it’s not limiting it to those. But we don’t think of the Air Force Academy as producing entrepreneurs.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:31
Right. Well, we do a lot, but yeah.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 10:33
We produce some, but that’s not the purpose. That’s not designed for— leaders of character, serving your military, serving your country, warfighters. That’s what we’re chartered with at the Air Force Academy, but so there’s a little different flavor there. And if you think about what is a U.S. Space Academy, what would our majors look like? Take a look at the Merchant Marine Academy. Take a look at the Coast Guard Academy. Merchant Marine Academy is a pretty similar model. You know, civilian-led organization. They have an interesting slant to theirs with the Reserve commission, so you don’t have to go active duty. You could spend that maybe eight years in the reserves. Or about 30% of them go active duty. They choose to do so. But for us, if you’re feeding the organization, just like the Air Force Academy gets to feed the Air Force and Space Force, you get to you get to direct what that curriculum is. It’s your fault if you produce a bad product for your organization, the Air Force or Space Force. NASA, you know, we have a big part of what NASA does is science. There’s human spaceflight. There’s research and technology development, like aeronautics, think X planes, and all the cool things that NASA has worked on before. You know, if we think about the war with Iran right now, stealth technology, F-22 thrust vectoring engines, all those things were born in NASA. Yes, those technologies were born in NASA. So if you want to work on those things, so when we think about the majors, like what kind of majors would a space academy have? They should feed what NASA and the civilian workforce needs. So we don’t have astrobiology at the Air Force Academy. What is what is heliophysics? You know, these are things that we want our graduates from the U.S. Space Academy to know about because, for example, just recently we launched the greatest space telescope we’ve ever launched in our history. It’s called the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, and it went on a Falcon 9 out of Florida. And oh, sorry, a Falcon Heavy. And so the Falcon Heavy is three Falcon 9s put together. So it’s a massive rocket, and this is the one that goes up, and the two boosters about eight minutes later come back down and land in formation with two sonic booms. It’s a crowd pleaser. It’s incredible. But the bottom line is, it had the most incredible telescope on it. And folks are like, “Well, what does that matter?” So, 36 years ago, the Hubble was launched, and everybody’s like, "Ooh, we get to unlock the secrets of the universe, find new galaxies.” And it did. But that was 36 years ago. So, what does Nancy Grace Roman do? So, Nancy Grace Roman can do in one month that would take Hubble 100 years.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 12:52
Oh my goodness!

Col. Matt Anderson 12:53
So that’s the leap in technology that we’ve got. One month of work on Hubble — or Roman — is 100 years of Hubble. So that’s coming back. That’s unlocking galaxies we’ve never seen before. Studying how planets and energy interact with each other to really unlock the secrets of universe. How do we get here? Is there life out there? So astrobiology is that major that will take all this data from Roman, and they’re like, "Well, what? I still didn’t understand this Roman thing.” So for our audience, I know I needed some examples—

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 13:22
This is helpful. That was my next question, thank you.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 13:24
Let’s say you’re at Falcon Stadium for a night game.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 13:27
OK, we’re there. Yes.

Col. Matt Anderson 13:28
Football game, and a tiny little firefly is right in front of the biggest lights at Falcon Stadium. And then you go past I-25 a mile away and you try to take a picture of that firefly with the lights behind it. There’s no way. Nancy Grace Roman can do that in space. A mile away, firefly with light behind it. It can block out the lights, focus on that. And then it’s a terabyte of data per day coming back to Earth. That’s a lot. In fact, it’s so big, we don’t even have anything that can display it right now. Like, they’re trying to describe to people what this game-changing technology is like. If you know, if like, “Hey, is it the size of Mount Rushmore?” Like, no, that’s too small. So some people have seen El Capitan, where you can free climb. So this is like 4K TVs all over the mountain of El Capitan. That’s the size of one picture, and that’s the galaxy. So long story short, astrobiology is a major that we think the U.S. Space Academy should have because we’re getting a terabyte a day. That’s not—like humans can’t even process that much information. So, you need artificial intelligence to do that. You need astrobiologists to study that. That’s not something the Air Force Academy is producing. This is very specific— nuclear engineering. We think that in order to get to Mars and return doesn’t really do any good if you get to Mars. You need nuclear power and propulsion. We don’t have nuclear engineering at the Air Force Academy. Naval Academy does because it’s very important for their mission for submarines and aircraft carriers. We think the next best thing for space travel and exploring the universe is nuclear power propulsion. So, as you know, we’re building a moon base. We’re going there in 2028. We’re going to land on the moon again, but we’re not just going for flags and footprints to see, like we did in the late ’60s, early ’70s. We’re going with massive spacecraft, and we’re going to the south pole of the moon. We can talk about why that’s important later. But we’re bringing a lot of equipment. In 2027 we’re bringing rovers and landers every single month in 2027. So we’re showing up on the moon with robots and rovers and so forth. But this just needs a different skill set. It needs a completely different skill set. We need quantity of highly trained people. And when that information comes back from Roman, you need people to know what it means. This is U.S. Space Academy, creating these scientists, these engineers, these operators, and we’re pretty fired up for it.


Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:45
Well, it seems like you’ve already been thinking about this. And so in 120 days, what are you actually then providing back? And really, what’s your approach? I mean, it seems like you’ve already identified, you know, some of the lanes and the capabilities that are needed. Can you tell us more?


Col. Matt Anderson 15:58
Sure thing. I mean, I’ll use an Air Force Academy example. So, when you go to the Academy, what do you grade it on? Your military performance average, your GPA, your physical performance, and then we have character baked in there. So there’s kind of four things you need to think about the Air Force Academy. Well, the executive order gave us nine things. “You will look at these nine things, and you will report back in 120 days.” And it’s everything from governance, curriculum to location, which is a highly interesting topic around the country. But it says these are nine things, you’ve got 120 days, which ironically is the day after Christmas. It’s Dec. 26, so we’re trying to make that a little earlier because, who does this go to? It goes to the president. Ultimately, he’ll make the decision, and it will inform the process. So right now, this is fact gathering. Now we are aggressive on that. In fact, we have a shot clock going on how many days we have left, and this is a lot to unpack in 120 days. We’re trying to get it quicker to 90 days, actually because just like back in 1954, this is going to require some  legislation, some appropriations and so forth. So if we want students in the summer of 2028, which is, if we use the Air Force example from 1955, that’s what we’re targeting: students in class summer of ’28. They need to be able to apply next year. You have two sons at the Air Force Academy.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:07
Yes I do.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 17:08
You know that process. It’s not easy. It’s not fast. It’s not easy.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:11
That’s correct.

Col. Matt Anderson 17:12
So if they’re going to apply in 2027 to be in class summer ’28, we got work to do.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:16
Well, thanks for getting us in the shot clock time period. We appreciate that. You know, when we talk about the technical competencies, I’m curious if you’re thinking as well when you do this research and this study on some of, like, the core competencies or the core values — Is that something that you’re thinking of baking in as well as in the way that we have our service academy?


Col. Matt Anderson 17:35
Core values will definitely be baked into the U.S. service academy. You look at all the service academies; it’s there. Civic-minded was mentioned in the executive order. It’s a civic minded— that’s exactly what we want. We can’t guarantee that product out of civilian universities. You can guarantee academic standards have been met and they give you a diploma, but we want that mindset coming into NASA, coming into our civil servant workforce, and we just can see a difference. You know, when you are mission-focused curriculum where core values are baked in, integrity is baked into you, we want that part of— there’s no reason that can’t be part of the U.S. service academy, and it will be.


Col. Naviere Walkewicz 18:10
I love that. So when I think about the space professional that’s going to come out, that’s going to come out of the space academy— I’m sure you’ve seen on socials a lot of ideas of what we could call our graduates. Not talking about that, but more specifically, do you think that the space academy is more focused on providing like space education for what is needed, or are you looking at creating space leaders that understand how to integrate the entire enterprise? I’m curious if that’s something…

Col. Matt Anderson 18:34
Yes and yes. We want— I mean, I think a lot of us. I majored in biology at the Air Force Academy, and arguably, what it taught me was a scientific way of thinking and approaching problems. But did I ever use biology, genetics, botany in my career? No. I mean, you ask a lot of Air Force Academy graduates; they never use their actual major, which differs from the civilian population, right? I think the space academy, you’re going to get to use your major more. If you think about, like, I used some other science examples, right? But there are engineering ones, and we talk about testing rockets, things like that. You’re going to get to use your major, and we need that technical expertise to continue American leadership in space. So I think we’re going to use the skills there, and we get to design the majors and everything to directly feed what we want. So you’re going to have some sort of service commitment. You know, the commission is going to look at that. Do you have the same five-year commitment that you have at military academies? Do you make it more? Like, what’s the right blend there so that we can get the right mix? I mean, there’s— everything’s open. You can do your four years at the U.S. Space Academy. If you’re going into civilian service, do they count as government service? They never counted for us in our military time. The time did not— your commitment start for us. It was after our second year, you know, after our sophomore year. When you go to class your junior year, we then had— either paying it back or you’re going to owe military service. Is that the right model? Should it be after freshman year? There’s— everything’s open, and this is what the commission is looking at. It’s a very interesting time. It’s a great problem, a challenge to look at. What’s the best return on investment for taxpayer money to establish the U.S. Space Academy? And we have a lot of people wanting to help. We’re trying to narrow down the ones— you know, we have 120 days. The commission itself cannot be full of bureaucracy. We actually have to move with speed, figure out those nine lines of effort and then get after them.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 20:23
So who’s around the table with you?

Col. Matt Anderson 20:25
Yeah, so there’s so there’s four people that were identified. Kind of. So the administrator of NASA is the chair of the commission. Then we have two vice chairs, and they’re both in the in the White House staff. I’m the executive director, which we all know what that means. I’m the deputy of administrator of NASA. So that means I’m doing a lot of the work. I’m doing kind of the kind of the quarterback to get it going. And then there’s a number of folks in there, like the secretary of War is on the commission, the secretary of the Air Force. So, you know, for all of the academy graduates, like, “Hey, are the Department of War interests going to be looked at?” Well, 100% We’ve got the secretary of War. We’ve got the secretary of the Air Force. In fact, we have a meeting coming up with all of them, and they’re not sending representatives. They’re showing up, and it just— it’s massive. With everything else going on in the world, they’re showing up to the first meeting of the commission, and we’re pretty excited about that. And there’s others, some other folks in there, a handful of them identified in the executive order and they’re there.  and they can also have their representatives, but we’re also allowed to bring in more, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re bringing in some experts, and I think a lot of Air Force Academy graduates will be part of that.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 21:26
So I imagine NASA is very excited about this. What, you know— what’s the sentiment with NASA at this, and what’s NASA’s role? I think, you know, such a heavy lift in this piece of space academy.

Col. Matt Anderson 21:37
Yeah, NASA has a huge role because the executive order said this is NASA-led. And that was very intentional to say NASA is a civilian space agency, as we talked about the three types of space sectors right now, so we have a huge role. The chair of the commission is Jared Isaacman and he could not be more excited about this. He views this as a game changer for our nation for space. He’s the most passionate person about space I’ve ever met in my life. He’s a fighter pilot…

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 21:59
More passionate than you?

Col. Matt Anderson 22:00
Yeah, he’s a civilian fighter pilot who’s got more than 8,000 flight hours. He’s incredibly talented. He’s been to space twice with his two private missions with Inspiration Four, where he raised $250 million for St. Jude. I mean, the guy’s just really good at life, frankly. He’s a good human. His next mission was about two years ago, Polaris Dawn, where he did the first civilian spacewalks. We got outside the capsule. He was up there for five days. His idea of risk and moving with speed is a little different than most people. So we’re excited about it.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 22:31
So what do you feel that you uniquely bring to this table? I mean, like you said, quarterback, heavy lifting. You know, how is your mindset and your approach to this because of you being you?

Col. Matt Anderson 22:42
Yeah, well, hopefully, passion is coming across. I’m incredibly passionate about it. My background with a with an academic passion for biology and science early on fits great with NASA. My aeronautics background fits great with NASA. The first A in NASA is aeronautics, and we do a lot of work in aeronautics. And then, you know, recently my, all my work in space with the Space Force Association, mostly on the national security side, that brings a little technical expertise. But also, if you look at the commission, there’s a lot of people sitting around that table that some may not have background with the others, and I feel like I have a good background with all of them, and that matters a lot as you’re trying to build trust and you’re trying to get everybody rolling in the same direction. Pretty exciting so far.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 23:24
Oh my goodness! You know, you talked a little bit in the beginning about how this will open doors for even, you know, those like your daughter with certain allergies that she couldn’t do certain things at service academies. I’m curious what you hope— let’s look 50 years down the road now. You know, in the way that Air Force Academy’s been here, what does Space Academy now— where are we at technologically wise in this in this space enterprise?

Col. Matt Anderson 23:45
Yeah, I think the most exciting thing is, who knows? Those first classes at the Air Force Academy came from West Point. That’s why we were able to move so fast. So even us, we went, still go through the obstacle course, the assault course. And there’s been critiques for years, like why are Air and Space Force you know cadets crawling under logs in the mud with bombs going off still in Jacks Valley? We still do it because there’s still value in training and mental toughness and things like that. Well, when you’re going out to space as an astronaut, or you’re training people to go to space, or you’re designing spacecraft that are in the harshest environments that we’ve ever known… When we spent— when we sent astronauts to the moon in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and they landed there, the temperature swings on the moon are up to 400 degrees when the sun is there and when the sun sets. 400-degree differences. So if you think Afghanistan and Iraq are tough environments, or even Antarctica, the moon is a completely different level. So you need to develop mentally tough people at an academy, just like our other surface academies have done. So all those experiential learning things: jumping out of planes, flying high-consequence fighter aircraft to test your mental toughness — go throw up as a freshman. Puke and rally, right? Puke and rally in a different way. Puke and rally. Get over it. Move on. You know the confidence course when we were here in Jacks Valley. The fear of heights. You know Reid Wiseman, the commander of Artemis II, who just came back, who just went around the moon, has publicly said many times, "I’m ironically scared of heights.” This is a highly decorated fighter pilot, astronaut who led you know the first mission around the moon in over 50 years and, you know, the furthest any humans have ever been. And he goes, “I’m afraid of heights.” So these are things that you and I went through at the Air Force Academy that we worked through. But I think, as I look at what I’m doing today and what you’re doing today, is what you can do. Think about what we did as a freshman. What our day looked like. What did— I mean, we woke up. We vacuumed the hallway. We had three current events.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 25:47
We called minutes.

Col. Matt Anderson 25:48
Yeah, we called minutes. We stood in formation. We looked at Contrails. We got quizzed on our knowledge. Sometimes yelled at our— you know, about our knowledge. Then we go to march and we get more quizzed on our knowledge. And then we get graded on our marching. We finally get to breakfast. We fill out the Form O-96. We have to— how many ice cubes are in the upperclassmens’ drinks?

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:05
Seven chews.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 26:06
I mean, seven— we haven’t even gotten to class yet. So then you work through your whole day. You go to track practice. You go to soccer practice. You go to M5. You come back. You got academic call to quarters and you’re exhausted. But what that taught us is you can do a lot in a day if you challenge yourself.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:21
That’s right.

Col. Matt Anderson 26:22
Well, we’re trying to beat China to the moon. We have clear objectives at NASA, and NASA’s role is just part of the whole federal government. This is a global competition with a growing power in China — economically, militarily, civil space-wise. We need those type of Academy grads all over our space industry. It could be working for Jason Kim, an alumni at Firefly.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:43
That’s right. My classmate, ’99.

Col. Matt Anderson 26:44
It could be Matt Kuta, who’s at Voyager Technologies. We have grads all over the place working in this industry, and they want Academy grads. Trust me, not just Air Force Academy grads. Hopefully, one day Space Academy grads.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:55
I love that. So you know, there’s such a human element to this. We’ve been talking about that. I imagine when the news came out, you probably got a lot of messages. How do you manage the, I guess, the questions that might take people down a different path. What can we share today that you’ve maybe seen in a question that we haven’t covered?

Col. Matt Anderson 27:13
I think it’s natural to read things and say, “What does that mean? What does that mean for the Air Force Academy.” First thing I say: Read the executive order. You know, I always tell my kids and people that I’ve worked for, and they say, "Hey, be book smart before you’re street smart.” So just read the actual order, and it is an order. This is an executive option. This is an executive order given to NASA. So we’re going to follow. We’re going to have to have it done in 120 days. But there’s just something about being book smart. And I learned that being a pilot, I was like— I didn’t understand the value of actually understanding the flying regulations until you know them and you can use them to your advantage and you can get the mission done. So, read the executive order. I beg people to read the executive order, see what it says, see what it doesn’t say, and then follow along with the commission. We will have events like this where we’re going to get to talk about it, and then, you know, just after Christmas when this thing is due, there’ll be a little bit time for the White House to figure it out, and I’m sure they’re going to try to move on this very quickly as well.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:03
Well, in 90 days, I mean that’s pretty aggressive. Have there been any early decisions or things that you can share with us now?

Col. Matt Anderson 28:09
No, not yet. It’s so short.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:11
Understood.

Col. Matt Anderson 28:12
It’s so short. Right now, we’re just getting the plan together, we’re setting milestones when things are due. I’ve had an opportunity to chat with our new superintendent, our new provost, which you know we used to call the dean, which I think is— I mean he’s incredible. Call sign “Fangs.” He’s helping us a lot thinking about our curriculum and just higher education in general. There’s some headwinds out there in the higher education world right now, and he’s navigating those great here at the Air Force Academy. Our superintendent, Gen. Moga, was so excited to learn more about this U.S. Space Academy, how it affects the Air Force Academy, and will there be exchanges down the road. I hope there are. I mean, if a cadet at the Air Force Academy wants to go to six months at the U.S. Space Academy and vice versa, we sure hope that that happens because I think there’s going to be excitement there. And I think— if you think about experiential learning that we have at the Air Force Academy, there’s a lot of them. I mean, even a lot has changed since we graduated. But jumping out of planes, flying gliders, powered flight program, you know, Falcon Sat, all the things that happen here to produce a better officer, they will be at Space Academy too. They’ll just be different. And they’re going to be incredible. They’re going to be well funded. The president laid out his vision. Is this is going to be similar to West Point, Annapolis and Air Force, and with those experiential, we have some incredible ideas what they could be, and with the technologies we have today. So I think cadets at the Air Force Academy are going to want to exchange. So what we’re looking at, Gen. Moga’s looking at a lot of the positives, and as are we, we hope to have a lot of that exchanges, and especially during summer programs. I think there’s an opportunity wherever this academy ends up. There’s some cool opportunities.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 29:46
Well, I think the breadth of touch has been really reassuring for everyone to hear. Like, there’s so many, I think, important inputs as you consider things. One of the things I’m curious on — because this is Long Blue Leadership — You know, we have our listeners and viewers that are faced with something that is proposed or ordered, perhaps, and they have to approach it without, you know, there’s an end date, but there’s not a lot of direction how to get there. What might you share with them on how to approach that?

Col. Matt Anderson 30:11
I think the thing is, you know, hit the “I believe button” a little bit and some trust. And if we look back and when service academies were stood up — why they were stood up — if you ever get intellectually curious, go back and do some reading and say, “Why did we stand up West Point, Annapolis, Air Force Academy, Coast Guard Academy, Merchant Marine Academy? What purpose does it serve? What was going on in the world at the time, and does it make sense? Did it make sense? And are we pretty thankful that we, you know, all the naysayers that said you don’t need an Air Force Academy — are we pretty thankful now where we’re at in the world?” And I say, yeah, we’re very thankful. So I think we’re going to see that with U.S. It’s tough, just like when Space Force was born seven years ago. That was not— not everybody was unborn with that. And now you look at it and what’s going on in a classified environment with China and Russia and other competitors. The benefit that the U.S. Space Force has brought to the effort in Iran has saved lives. It has saved Air Force Academy lives because we have a Space Force. Because we have Air Force Academy graduates serving and leading in the Space Force, it saved lives. That’s what’s— that’s the bottom line. And I think we’ll see similar results in the greater space architecture and enterprise with U.S. Space Academy in the industry world, the civil servant world, potentially military service, if cadets want to do that, but I think we’re going to look back on it and say, “That was a great call.”

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:29
I love starting with the “I believe button” and have some confidence. You know what have you learned about yourself in this journey? Because you know most would look at you and say, all these things are you still growing in your leadership?

Col. Matt Anderson 31:40
Oh man, 100%. First of all, you can always stretch your personal limits. Meeting a superhuman, I call him— like Jared Isaacman. You can always find men— I talked to Fred Gregory just yesterday, an incredible Class of 1964…

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:58
Distinguished Graduate.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 31:59
Distinguished Graduate, astronaut, former deputy administrator of NASA. I spoke to him yesterday. He passed a letter to Mark Hille and said, "Hey, could you pass this to Matt Anderson? I have some thoughts on the U.S. Space Academy.” Fred is 85 years old, and he just busted out a paper on his thoughts — pros and cons — of the U.S. Space Academy. So I was like, I’ve got to talk to this guy. I’ve never met him before. I mean, he was a former deputy minister at NASA, so we spoke for like 45 minutes yesterday. And I learned so much from him about humility. And he’s incredibly technically savvy. His background is unbelievable. He’s 85 years old and still growing. We had an opportunity a couple weeks ago where Jared Isaacman got confirmed last December. I got confirmed about three months ago in May. So we’re just like every commander does. From comes in, looks at looks at the team he’s got on the field. You need to reorganize a little bit, and we’ve done some of that, and we’ve asked for some serious change within NASA, looking at how we assess risk. And we did a pretty exciting thing a couple weeks ago. We brought 45 of the most senior folks at NASA, and we went to an offsite. We went to Bozeman, Montana, and…

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:11
Really offsite.

Col. Matt Anderson 33:12
We flew everybody up there, and I should say, Administrator Isaacman personally hosted everybody in Bozeman, Montana. He is an avionic, an aeronautics, very passionate about aeronautics. So he keeps a fleet of personally owned fighter aircraft up in Bozeman, Montana. MiG 29, Alpha Jets, F-5s. And another thing that I’ve done with him a lot recently is skydive. So I did AM 490 when I was a cadet, five jumps. But since then, we’ve been doing one minute one-minute free falls, forming up on each other. So we skydive regularly. So we’re jumping out of planes together. We’re flying fighter jets together. My second day on the job, we hopped into F fives and ripped around Starbase, Texas, right before a Starship launch, and so we’re just showing that hey, NASA can be, can have that sizzle like it had years ago. Most of us weren’t even alive when we landed on the moon in the late ’60s, early ’70s. So we’re just trying to generate that excitement. So we took 45 of our senior leaders, went to Bozeman, Montana, and we said, “Hey, we’re going to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable.” So I’m really proud of Kelly. She’s a 62-year-old HR professional, SES that works at NASA and she works for me, and I said, “Kelly, I really want you to jump out of airplane, and I want you to fly in a fighter, and if you puke, that’s great. You can rally just like I did.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 34:23
You’re like, “I did it too.”

 

Col. Matt Anderson 34:24
And she goes, “You’re crazy, you know?” And we had a whole bunch that the— Dr. Fox, who leads all of science for NASA, same thing. She’s like, “You want me to do what?” I’m like, “No, we need you to understand what we put our astronauts through, the risk that they and their families take, because we’re the ones leading the organization.” So I want our lawyers, I want our program managers that run the money, I want everybody that’s running the organization to understand risk like we have our astronauts do so that we can, no kidding, get to the moon in 2028. So they’re jumping out of planes, they’re flying in fighters. We did all kinds of awesome things, personal growth, and then after they didn’t feel that that great, we did about seven or eight hours of the standard PowerPoint, your briefness on your objectives, and so you got to do this, and then you got to perform, and it was a great team-building exercise. But we took folks that didn’t get this opportunity, like we had, the Air Force Academy, and we said, this is what we think the new NASA should look like, and then shortly thereafter, about a week later, the executive order for the Space Academy came out, and they all kind of smiled at me like, "We see what you guys are doing. You’re creating a new NASA that’s going to go to the moon, build a moon base, nuclear power to Mars and beyond. And they’re like, "Yeah, this is the mindset we need.”

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 35:34
That is very exciting, and actually, there were so many good nuggets in there for leaders because you made it real. You made it real for the ones that are really building the products or providing a service to understand what it’s like on the other side of it and I think that’s really important for leaders. And then you also walked it with them. So thank you for sharing those two things, Matt, what’s something you’re doing every day to be a better leader? I mean, in the time that you, you know, you have with all the time.

Col. Matt Anderson 35:57
Yeah, I work on it a lot. I had the opportunity to be an AOC here at the Academy, kind of mid-career, where you go get a master’s degree in counseling and leadership, and really the focus there is leadership as a commander you’re a leader. Counseling is a soft skill, but you can figure out how to do that in a manner. Maybe meet people in a different space. So what I sum that up is, be very demanding, but don’t be demeaning. I think when you start getting down that demeaning path, that’s when we get into trouble. But I mean, everybody wants their kids’ coach to be demanding. Like, you don’t put your kids in sports for a really soft coach. That’s not— you want them to learn life lessons and all that stuff. But you don’t want a demeaning coach. If a coach is hard on your kid, I know for me, perfect. I love it because I’m hard on him too, but I’m not demeaning. So as we as we work through this, and even when I went through my Senate confirmation hearing, there were those that maned me to succeed and there were those that didn’t want me to succeed.  But be a leader. Ironically, I talked about core values in a lot of my interviews with the senators, and I and I talked to them about what we learned at the Air Force Academy, and their staffers were taking notes, and they just didn’t get to hear that very often. I was shocked.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 36:58
Yes, I am too, actually.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 36:59
I was shocked that at the highest levels of our government, Senate staffers that are great humans that have great academic backgrounds, I’m like, you know what? It just comes down to core values, to be honest. And I talked to about our Air Force core values that have stood a long time now, if you think about it, they haven’t changed, and it’s pretty amazing. I talk about those core values. Organizations, companies that have core values, their stock price tends to do better. Companies that don’t have core values, they struggle. They struggle in the media. They struggle with shareholders. They don’t have a vision. If you have core values to fall back on, the more I’ve learned as a leader, I’m like, look, you’ve got to fall back on that. If you just do the right thing, it sounds so simple, but people they fumble the ball all the time on that. They just they don’t do the right thing. They’re trying to do the right thing for a shareholder or for some other reason. But if you stay focused on the mission, you have core values, I think you’re in a good spot.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 37:48
We have that Polaris.

Col. Matt Anderson 37:49
Yeah, absolutely.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 37:50
Absolutely. What would you tell a cadet nowadays, or someone, a young child, or you know, kid that’s growing up? What should they be doing now, for the future, to be a better leader?

Col. Matt Anderson 38:02
Yeah, I think, No. 1 is it’s work ethic. If we could, I think we look at it with excellence in all we do with our core value, but I don’t think you can be excellent without work ethic. So if you could somehow put grit in core values, I honestly think from what I’ve seen, I’ve seen it with my two daughters. If you have grit and you work hard, you may not be the 1,600 SAT kid. I definitely was not. But if you outwork people day in, day out, take that that duty day like we had as freshmen, and you just work. I think whatever you’re working on, it could be Eagle Scouts, it could be the band, it could be the choir, it could be sports. You just work hard. People, I mean, I’ve had the opportunity to be a lot of the senior space leaders across the world, and they just hire people to work hard because they all work hard. So they look at that person. Reminds me of me, and I want to hire them. I had the opportunity when I first met Jared Isaacman. What did I— first time I met him, I interviewed him in front of the cadets at the Air Force Academy. He was coming out of COVID. He was the first external audience. We brought I brought Jared Isaacman in here, and I said, “Hey, Mr. Isaacman, what do you think of Academy grads?” And at the time, he was a 39-year-old billionaire with, that’s been going to space, started his own company at 16, flies his own fighter aircraft. The line was out the door to ask this guy questions. He’s a great human, and I said—

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 39:21
Talk about work ethic, right there.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 39:22
It’s incredible. “What do you think of academy grads? If you see a resume from an Academy grad, what does that— do you look at their major, what they majored in?” He goes, "No, no, no. I just know what they’ve been through. I know they work hard.” And every cadet kind of sat up and goes, "Hmm, So 2-0 and go will work?” You know? It kind of was funny, but he goes, "I just know what you’ve been through. So you’ve worked hard. It was different than partying at a state school.”  He respected the process of going through an academy. He did. Every academy grad, Air Force Academy grads sitting there was like, "Wow, that guy’s the coolest person I’ve ever heard talk, and he values my education.” So I think working hard is huge.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 39:59
That is awesome. Well, to kind of bring this home, I’m curious if you think will there be updates to the community, to the public on kind of your work, or do you expect that we’ll hear it in about 90 days or so?

Col. Matt Anderson 40:11
Yeah, I think it’ll be at the end of the commission because there’s just so much work that has to be done. I think there will be some steps along the way, like we expect to put out a request for information to the states as far as where this thing is going to be located. So, hey, Colorado, what would you think it looks like to put a U.S. Space Academy in Colorado? California? Texas? So on and so forth? Well, you know, they’re going to have an opportunity to make their case. Ultimately the president of the United States is going to make that decision. The commission is going to set out the process to apply, if you will. What resources we would need? What do you think your state can offer to this academy from a space economically, geographically, so on and so forth. Are you close to an airport? Do you have a space industry nearby? We don’t even know what we’re going to learn from the submissions. But that’s probably the first step that the public will see — that there’s going to be an RFI that goes out that says, "Hey, states, we want to hear what you have to say.” This is no different than what happened with the Air Force Academy. I think the difference is then we had over 500 submissions to host the Air Force Academy. We’re going to try to narrow that down one per state because we don’t have enough time to go through 550 submission. And it’s just a request for information. It’s not a request for a proposal or something like that, like an acquisition. We’re just trying to gather information right now and give the president the best options available.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:26
This has been amazing. Matt, was there anything I didn’t ask you that you think would be really helpful for folks?

Col. Matt Anderson 41:30
No, I just I’ve had a blast talking about it. Hopefully that comes through a little bit. I ask people to be patient, get excited, and if you want, think about if you’re in the space industry, like you know what they need? They need this major. People talk about program management. You know, the executive board had said we want to make entrepreneurs. Well, we need to have very adaptive, world-class program managers, acquisition, contracting-type folks that understand the far. They understand what space companies are using to move with speed, and we want those graduates coming out of the academy as well. So there’s a lot of good ideas out there. You know, flow them up to us. We’re an open book. We’re excited. It is a commission. It’s just an EO for a commission to see what’s possible, and we’re working hard to do it.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 42:14
Is there a flow for that information be captured to you guys?

 

Col. Matt Anderson 42:17
There is.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 42:18
Oh, I was like, you’re not offering necessarily everyone to reach out to Matt Anderson.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 42:22
That’s probably the worst way to do it. My— every form of communication right now is saturated.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 42:28
Oh, I can imagine.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 42:29
So, you know, there’s the best way to do it for now, especially locations, is work through your state. The states, some states have commissions, they have nonprofits that speak for the states. There’s different— every state does it kind of differently. Some states, the governors are running it, and they’re kind of taking that. Hey, this is a whole-state effort, getting private industry and investors and donors, frankly, involved. So I think work through their states on those types of things. And you know, honestly, this is a historic opportunity for the United States of America. It’s to ensure American space leadership and across the entire enterprise. And I really appreciate— this is really the first time I’ve had a chance to talk about it publicly. So I really appreciate the work that you and the whole team are doing here.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:13
Well, Matt, we’re so proud to have you, you know, as a key leader in this in this effort and you know can you continue to make our first academy proud so we’re grateful for you.

Col. Matt Anderson 43:23
Thank you. Go Falcons.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:24
That’s right. Thank you so much. Well, this has been Long Blue Leadership Now. Be sure to stay in touch and you can find all of our Long Blue Leadership episodes at usafa.org/longblueleadership. I’m Naviere Walkawicz, Class of ’99. Again, thank you to Matt Anderson, Class of ’97. We’ll see you next time. Thank you so much.

 

Col. Matt Anderson 43:41
Thank you.

 

KEYWORDS

United States Space Academy, presidential commission, federal academy, NASA leadership, space education, commercial space, national security space, civil space, Space Force, American leadership in space, orbital economy, lunar economy, astronaut career pathways, STEM workforce, space policy, executive order, aerospace innovation, astrobiology, heliophysics, service academies.

The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation