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As NASA’s Discovery launch date nears, the three signatures on the final flight readiness certificate will include the name of NASA’s chief engineer, Rex Geveden, a Lowes, Ky., native, and a Murray State University physics graduate.

Geveden said in addition to his signature being on the official certificate, alongside the names of other NASA administrators Bryan D. O’Connor, and William F. Readdy, it will also be the first time he will actually witness a launch from the control room at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Geveden earned his bachelor's degree in physics in 1983 and his master's degree in physics in 1984 from MSU. He began his 15-year aerospace career with NASA’s Marshall Center in Huntsville, Ala., in 1990. During this time, Geveden has led a number of successful space flight projects, while also ensuring NASA’s mission to understand and protect the home planet, explore the Universe, search for life and to inspire the next generation of explorers.

The recipient of numerous awards from NASA, Geveden has received honors that include NASA’s Leadership and Silver Snoopy medals, while also being the first NASA employee to reach Level IV in the Project Management Development Process.

Prior to assuming Geveden’s new role in Washington, he led a government, industry and university team in developing a sophisticated payload designed to test two features of Einstein’s General Relativity theory to the April 2004 launch of Gravity Probe-B from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The GP-B has received national media attention on ABC News, NPR Talk of the Nation—Science Friday, New York Times and the New Scientist Web.

Since Geveden’s appointment in October as NASA’s chief engineer and most recently his appointment as acting associate administrator, he continually fosters NASA preparation to implement the 2015-2020 New Exploration Vision recently announced by President Bush, and is focused to guide this plan to fruition.

Since leaving the Marshall Space Flight Center, to assume his new role as chief engineer in Washington, D.C., Geveden has actively been reviewing a stack of approximately 300 requests for waivers that required signatures prior to this launch. In reviewing these requests he has traveled to NASA’s numerous field sites including Houston, Huntsville, New Orleans and Vandenberg, Calif., to review the readiness plan of each station.

After reviewing the Columbia disaster report and reviewing the readiness plan for Discovery, Geveden is confident the changes that have been implemented are composed of the highest degree of safety measures to ensure the success of the launch.

Geveden said a major change was implemented after they learned the Columbia crash was caused by damage sustained when the spacecraft was hit by chunks of insulating foam that broke off during liftoff and smashed a hole in the left wing “We have evaluated every single hazard report that was released from the Columbia launch and have made sound changes that include eliminating the ice and foam debris for a much more controlled and better process,” he said.

Another change involves the 107 cameras mounted on shuttle Discovery including an external tank camera will allow a live feed from the underside of the shuttle to record the events of the daylight launching. According to the Columbia report, only few cameras were installed and some were not working. “We mandated that this be a daytime launch and well photographed and heavily viewed,” he explained. “The shuttle will also be photographed as it approaches the space station.”

Geveden believes NASA has reached the time to try again. “We are at zero risk if we sit on the ground.”

Throughout Geveden’s NASA career his physicist technical savvy has given him the knowledge and the authority to make “risky” decisions. Beth Dickey, an author who wrote about Geveden in the March 1 issue of GOVEXEC magazine, describes him as a “straight-laced” guy to his colleagues, tracing his risky demeanor back to his Kentucky hometown.

Geveden’s sister, Susan Fisher, also a MSU graduate who calls her brother ‘witty’, offers another description of him. “He always had a photographic memory and was able to memorize lines from movies and could also do great imitations of people,” she said.

Susan said she will be watching the launch. “I’m very excited about the upcoming launch,” she said. “I knew growing up with Rex he would do something like this one day. I don’t know if I realized it would be of this magnitude.”

Geveden’s parents, Tom and Sandra, will be watching the launch from their Ballard County home. Tom said he has spoken to his son numerous times about the launch. “We are both of the same opinion that once you have done all that you can and you have done your best, then you go with it,” he said. “He never took exceptionally high risks as a child, he always used good judgment.”

The elder Geveden said he knew his son would be okay in life no matter what career he chose. “He can handle this (the launch).”

Risk is a word that Rex has implemented with his own two children, Bridgett and Jake. While he and his wife, Gail, reared their children in Huntsville, Ala., Geveden believed it was important to allow his children to experience certain risks during childhood that sometimes meant going against the thoughts and beliefs of others.

Rex explained that his son wanted to play in their home’s nearby creek and said he knew this created some concern for other neighborhood friends. “Those type of things are important for children to experience,” he said. “I wanted Jake to have a childhood and experience all the curiosities of a young boy.”

Safety and risk are in the hands of the three men who will pen their signatures on the final flight readiness certificate. Geveden, MSU’s 2004 Distinguished Alumnus recipient and the 2004 Outstanding Alumnus of Kentucky (OAK), will be alongside two other names, O’Connor, a Naval Safety School top graduate who also holds the NASA Silver Snoopy Award, and Readdy, a distinguished U.S. Naval Academy aerospace engineering graduate who is the recipient of the Legion of Merit Distinguished Flying Cross.