Dr. Phil Metzger

Dr. Philip Metzger is a planetary scientist with the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida performing research and technology development for asteroids, the Moon and Mars. In 2014 he retired from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where he was on the Space Shuttle launch team and later with the International Space Station program. He co-founded the KSC Swamp Works, which is a a rapid innovation lab developing technologies to work with the resources in space. His research led to NASA’s effort to protect the historic lunar sites, including the Apollo landing sites, from rocket exhaust blast effects. He participated in lunar, Martian, and asteroid mission architecture studies and was on NASA’s technology roadmapping team. He was selected as Kennedy Space Center’s Scientist/Engineer of the Year for 2011. He received the astronaut’s Silver Snoopy award in 2011 and NASA’s Silver Achievement Medal in 2014. He was voted by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) aerospace division to receive the Outstanding Technical Contribution Award of 2016.