S. Neil Hosenball

Neil had a varied and distinguished legal career. I would like to dwell on one aspect of his career that should resonate with many NW readers.

For those of us with long memories of the pitched battles involving NASA's bureaucracy and space entrepreneurship, Neil stands out as an early champion of advocating creative ways for the agency to partner with the then fledgling commercial space sector. Today, with various executive and legislative officials trying to outbid themselves in endorsing space commercialization, it is easy to forget that, until recently, the bureaucratic antibodies were out in force against those of us pushing for new ways for the government to encourage commercial space ventures.

I dealt with Neil starting in the late 1970s until his retirement from NASA in 1985. Neil was the ideal General Counsel. He was a public servant of great integrity. And he was a top notch attorney who was successful in both the public and private sectors. Intimate with the details of the NASA statute, he never hid behind the law to avoid making tough calls. Rather, he always tried to be proactive in protecting the agency's interests while being creative in pursuing ways that were consistent with the spirit of White House and Congressional calls for promoting commercialization. He was a senior official who was very generous in being open to new ideas - even if they came from brash young upstarts such as myself. He was a wonderful pragmatist when it came to rolling up his sleeves and devising concrete solutions to seeming intractable problems. For example, I recall that he deployed the agency's leasing authority to allow one start-up commercial venture to gain access to a surplus government rocket stage. (Alas, this was for a competitor of a company I was working for at the time but we all applauded the spark of creativity that contrasted with the mostly negative disposition of the bureaucracy at the time.) This was but one random example of Neil's dedication to using the law to generate win-win outcomes for the taxpayer.

While mourning his loss, attorneys working at NASA and across the Centers can look to the late Neil Hosenball as a source of great inspiration as they assist their leadership in successfully addressing the legal and regulatory challenges associated with supporting the commercial space industry.