Bechtel's Mike Costas named to space industry advisory board

ASCEND, a global community focused on building humanity’s off-world future faster, today announced its 2021 Guiding Coalition, including Mike Costas, general manager of Bechtel’s Defense and Space business line. The coalition is an advisory board of technical, scientific, engineering, and business leaders selected to help maximize ASCEND’s year-round reach and impact, including the design and content of its centerpiece annual event.

“The infrastructure needed to grow the space industry in the coming years will be complex and requires cooperation from a large and diverse supply chain,” said Costas, a Bechtel principal vice president. “ASCEND recognizes that adjacent industries – beyond traditional aerospace companies – will be needed to propel this growth. It was the same more than 60 years ago, when Bechtel first worked for the U.S. space program. We see a bright future and our support will continue.”


_{Mike Costas, general manager of Bechtel's Defense and Space business line.} 

Infrastructure on Earth, in low-Earth orbit, on the moon, or on asteroids or Mars will require master planning, management of complex megaprojects, first-of-a-kind technologies, detailed design and engineering, and construction in remote or harsh environments, Costas said.

Powered by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), ASCEND was launched in 2020 to accelerate space commerce, exploration, and new discovery. Following a quarterly series of 2021 ASCENDx programs online, the annual event this November will be presented in a hybrid format — live in Las Vegas and online everywhere. The November program will feature presentations and conversations led by high-profile thought leaders and rising industry influencers. Content will focus on big challenges, pathways to success, the application of innovation, and the exponential value of interdisciplinary collaboration in space.

The 33 members of the 2021 ASCEND Guiding Coalition bring an accumulated wealth of experience – from space exploration and vehicle design to communications, government, and finance – to inform and inspire the ASCEND community.

“ASCEND is connecting leaders across disciplines in bold, new ways. AIAA is unique in our ability to convene the technical conversation, so that expertise can inform the economics and the policies of space exploration,” said Dan Dumbacher, AIAA executive director. “We want to have the hard conversations and drive the intentional outputs to accelerate building our off-world future.”

Bechtel’s 60-plus years of support to the space and missile industry includes significant projects at major launch and test facilities such as Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg Air Force Base, the Stennis Space Center, the Ground-based Midcourse Missile Interceptor program, and Ground-based Strategic Deterrent program, among others.