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[Kyle Herring] While the team here
in Houston continues to follow along

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with the Expedition 30 crew's timeline on
orbit, we'll also take a moment to talk

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with Ken Tenbusch who is also down at
the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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He is the Commercial Crew
Program's Partner Manager for ATK.

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And Ken we appreciate you joining us today.

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[Ken Tenbusch] Hey good morning Kyle.

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Very good to be here.

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[Kyle] Yeah, it's great to have you here.

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You know I just talked to John and Gennaro
about their role in the overall program

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as partner managers for each one of these of
seven companies that are part of the program.

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And of course your role is to be the partner
manager for ATK, but first tell us little bit

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about yourself and how you
ended up where you are today.

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[Ken] Sure.

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I grew up in small town in Michigan and probably
I think as a young boy, you know, just watching,

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you know, the Saturn Five rocket, you know,
head towards the Moon and seeing the likes

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on Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, all those.

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It just always excited me
from the very beginning.

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So I think that was kind of the impetus
to kind of keep me on a path to, you know,

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to keep me excited about science and mathematics

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and move me towards eventually
getting my college degree.

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And so, yeah, I had a, had a, some good
luck as far as finding my way on to NASA.

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I eventually, I started first after my
graduation from the Air, you know I graduated

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with my Bachelors in Aerospace
Engineering at the University of Florida

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and then worked in the Air Force.

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And while I was there after my early tour I
had an opportunity to do some interviewing

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at NASA and found my way working there.

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So that was my start as far as
getting into the space industry.

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I think, I will say this, I spent a summer
while I was in college doing cement construction

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and that also was a pretty good, you know,
it gave me the desire to stick it through,

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and make it through and get my degree.

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So again I had that good luck as far as getting
an interview and then eventually getting the job

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at Kennedy Space Center and I pretty
much stayed here my entire career.

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[Kyle] When did you join KSC?

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[Ken] It was back in 1989.

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Hard to believe it's been over 20 years now.

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But, you know, there I had a good career,
you know, as far as following my heart

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and being able to do a lot of the things
I that wanted to do here and very blessed.

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[Kyle] And so what did you work
on before Commercial Crew now?

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[Ken] I started out as an External
Tank mechanical systems engineer

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and then had a chance to work with some NASA
test directors while here in operations,

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you know, working through, you
know, various issues as far

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as with tank processing,
ground processing here at KSC.

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And that always excited me so I did that
for quite a long time and eventually got

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into landing operations and then since I was
working closely with the orbiter at that point,

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I started, I was asked to be a vehicle manager

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for two different orbiters
on both OV 104 and OV 103.

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[Kyle] And that's Atlantis and Discovery.

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[Ken] Exactly, and, and then eventually
that led to a flow director position

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which gave me a chance to see shuttle, the
shuttle program from a lot of various, you know,

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areas, you know, as far as seeing, you know, the
interconnections, you know, and all the effort

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that goes along with putting a vehicle
together and getting it ready for flight.

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And then from there, and then given some
background that I had as far as with Marshall

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and working with ETSRB operations, had
a small stint as far as with working

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with Marshall design engineering
and primarily, you know,

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as far as with the Solid
Rocket Booster specifically.

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And then I did work closely
with ATK at that point.

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And then, you know, given I think
a lot of the various experiences

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that I've had it just made sense

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to start working Constellation just
before the end of the shuttle program.

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So I was working upper stage on design
and development and, and I was, you know,

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that was very exciting work that I was
able to do there and then so given that,

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it was a nice easy transition
to work Commercial Crew.

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[Kyle] Yeah, I was going to say that's a
perfect transition to the role you're in now...

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[Ken] Exactly.

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[Kyle] ...with ATK right?

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[Ken] Specifically, with ATK exactly.

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Because I've been working so closely with, with
Aries-1 on design and development and then here

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at ATK, you know, as leveraging off of that, all
that work and effort that had been done during

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that program, the Constellation program, it was,
you know, it was, was perfect as far as working

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with them and trying to continue to help them
work through their development of that rocket.

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Their rocket being the Liberty rocket.

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[Kyle] Right.

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Right. I don't need to ask you about being
integrated with them then because you,

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you've obviously worked pretty
closely with them.

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And then, so the transition
into a Partner Manager role

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under Commercial Crew was pretty simple I would
think because you already knew all those people.

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[Ken] Exactly Kyle.

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So it was I knew a lot of the folks.

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I knew it was a very good hard working team.

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And I knew how they were, you know, using what
had already been done as far as, you know,

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through their NASA experiences, because,
you know, we have had contracts with them

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in the past and a good working
relationship always with ATK that, you know,

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again it was just such an easy transition to
continue that effort and help them to continue

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to build what I would say a good rocket
that could carry crew very easily.

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And let me, I'll take it maybe a little bit more
further into the Liberty rocket itself, know,

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because you've got now first a stage
that has got what I would call a very,

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a very good robust design, you know,
that has evolved through the years.

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And now you take that motor, add an extra
segment, five segment motor as a first stage.

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You've got a very dependable first stage there.

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And then, you know, then what they did
was they worked closely with Astrium,

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and that's one of the partners, that builds the
Ariane-V rocket and so they took the core stage

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of that particular rocket
and then looked to integrate

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that as an upper stage for the Liberty rocket.

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So now you've got basically two
systems that are very good designs

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with a great safety record behind them.

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And then it was just a matter
of now ATK continuing to develop

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and integrate those two systems together
into one solid dependable rocket.

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[Kyle] Well now your, ATK is a tiny bit
different than the, what John's working

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with SpaceX and Gennaro with Boeing.

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But, cause ATK is one of the
unfunded Space Act Agreement partners.

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But it doesn't change the fact that
you guys have developed milestones

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and you're working toward those.

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Can you talk about some of their milestones
that are behind them and ahead of them?

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[Ken] Sure, absolutely.

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You know, it's the unfunded SAA is
just like the funded SAAs, as you said,

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except that ATK basically doing their
development all on their own funding.

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Yet, they still wanted to work closely
with us, you know, they still wanted to try

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to pull on a lot of the expertise.

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Especially if you consider, you know, the team
that we could pull together and help them,

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a team that has already been
working a lot of that design,

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you know, over the last five, six years.

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So, they said, you know, look,
you know, we don't want any money,

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but we would like to have some advice every,
you know, so, you know, on some of our designs

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and some of our planning, and how we plan
on working through our certification effort.

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And so again it's a matter of now
taking, you know, these components

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and then eventually integrating
that into one overall rocket.

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So that's kind of where they're heading.

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The final heading right now, as far as at
least within our initial, I'll call agreement,

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is to get them through a state where they're
very close to what I would call an integral,

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an integrated preliminary design review, since
they still have quite a ways to go as far as,

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you know, integrating into one overall vehicle.

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You know, you've got the good components.

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You've got all the piece parts in place
but now you need to be able to take it

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to that next level when you can actually
certify a complete launch vehicle.

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And this particular launch vehicle, because
of the power that you get from that first

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and now upper stage and they're looking
at carrying on the order of 45,000 pounds

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to low Earth orbit fully capable of taking,
you know, spacecraft, satellites or, you know,

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if they wanted to even like quite
a bit of cargo onto a station.

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So, you know, they've got different
configurations that they're looking at

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and it also builds a solid business case for not
only supporting maybe our future needs with NASA

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but then also with, with the DOD, the Air
Force, and also with maybe the launch, LSP,

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Launch Support Program and some of
their satellites, heavy, you know,

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payloads that they need to have
a very large rocket to be able

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to carry in to that low Earth orbit area.

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So I mean they've got a very good vehicle
and a solid business case for continuing

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to develop this particular vehicle.

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So they were just looking for our help and
getting them through all the different,

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various testing that they need to do to be
able to get this vehicle off the ground.

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[Kyle] I know it's old hat to ATK.

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They've been around a long time.

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But it still sounds like it's very exciting,
because it's a new program for them, you know,

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as well as you working with them right?

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[Ken] Right, I mean they were very excited,
even getting the unfunded SAA and, you know,

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you can see that their team is, you know,
poised to try to take it to that next level.

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You know so they're going to be, you know
they're working quite, quite hard on to try

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to get into that next, what I'll call that next
phase of our development effort and working

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with all these various industry partners and
if they're able to get that then, you know,

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they're going to be looking at, you know,

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some test flights as early as,
you know, maybe the end of 2014.

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So I mean its close and you
can see it in their faces.

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I mean they want to clearly
build this rocket [Kyle] Well,

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it sounds real exciting all the work you
guys are doing in support of Commercial Crew

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and I really appreciate you stopping by
also and talking to us for a few minutes

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about what you're doing and how you're
supporting Commercial Crew with the ATK.

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So, Ken, appreciate it a lot.

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Thanks. [Ken] Well, thank you Kyle.

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Appreciate you having us
here and getting a chance

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to talk all this very exciting stuff for sure.

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[Kyle] Okay.

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Take care and we'll hopefully
talk to you again in the future.

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[Ken] You do the same.

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Bye. [Kyle] That's Ken Tenbusch.

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He is the Partner Manager
for ATK, one of the partners

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in the Commercial Crew Program for NASA.

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All seven of them supporting in
various aspects with a partner manager

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that focuses on the entire program.

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Tomorrow on Friday we'll have the final
three partner managers join us to talk