Scott Pace

On July 13, 2017, President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Pace to be the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council. Pace’s selection was expected and warmly received by those in government and industry.

Pace was the chair of 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Space Policy Advisory Group. Pace wrote that Romney is the only 2012 presidential candidate with "the leadership, management skill, and commitment to American exceptionalism" to restore "the U.S. space program to greatness." Pace stated in 2012 that the 2020 date Newt Gingrich suggested for a lunar base was feasible when it was proposed in 2005, but it is no longer. Pace said a return to the moon is doable, but it is hard to figure out when NASA could achieve this.

He was appointed as a NASA associate administrator by George W. Bush and supported Bush's plan to return to the moon. He was disappointed that President Barack Obama cancelled those plans. Pace stated in 2011, "Space leadership is highly symbolic of national capabilities and international influence, and a decline in space leadership will be seen as symbolic of a relative decline in U.S. power and influence."

September 2008 Scott Pace became a professor of the practice of international affairs at George Washington University. He was also named the director of the Space Policy Institute at that university's Elliott School of International Affairs. The Institute's activities are centered on policy issues concerning the United States' space program and its relationships to the programs of other countries. The Institute facilitates cooperation between researchers, analysts, and students related to future efforts in space. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Summer Science Program.

From 2002-2008, he worked at NASA, becoming the Associate Administrator for Program Analysis and Evaluation in 2005. In this capacity, he was responsible for providing objective studies and analyses in support of policy, program and budget decisions by the NASA Administrator. At NASA, he participated in negotiations that resulted in the 2004 GPS-Galileo Agreement between the United States and the European Commission.

From 2001 to 2002 he was the Assistant Director for Space and Aeronautics in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the presidency of George W. Bush. There he was responsible for space and aviation-related issues and coordination of civil and commercial space issues through the Space Policy Coordinating Committee of the National Security Council.

Scott Pace worked for the RAND Corporation's Science and Technology Policy Institute from 1993 to 2001. He played a role in adding and preserving radio navigation satellite spectrum at the 1997 and 2000 World Radiocommunication Conferences. He also was a member of Department of Defense Senior Review Group on Commercial Remote Sensing and the National Research Council's Committee on Earth Sciences.

Scott Norman Pace (born January 23, 1959) currently serves as the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council. Pace was formerly the Director of the Space Policy Institute at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, where he was also a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs.

Scott Norman Pace was born on January 23, 1959 in Burbank, Los Angeles, California, USA, the only child of Ord Boorem Pace and Nobie Kamei. In 1975, while in high school, he attended a program for advanced science students, the Summer Science Program. In 1980 Scott Pace received a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Harvey Mudd College and went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he got master's degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics and Technology and Policy in 1982. On January 10, 1987 he married Dana Johnson.