As NASA's Orbital Debris Program Manager and Chief Scientist for Orbital Debris at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Mr. Johnson serves as the agency authority in the field of orbital debris, including all aspects of environment definition, present and future, and the operational and design implications of the environment to both manned and unmanned space vehicles operating in Earth orbit.  He is responsible for conceiving, conducting, and directing research to define the orbital debris environment, determining operational techniques for spacecraft to protect themselves from the environment, and recommending techniques to minimize the growth in the future orbital debris environment.  Mr. Johnson coordinates NASA's orbital debris research with similar research conducted by other US agencies, the European Space Agency, the Russian Space Agency, Japanese Space Agencies, and other international organizations.  He leads the US delegation to the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) and is the lead technical advisor to the US delegation at United Nations in matters concerning orbital debris.  He supports flight safety assessments for the US Space Shuttle and the International Space Station programs. 

He gave several lectures to the student body on the following subjects: 
 

"Orbital Debris - Background and a Case Study"

The fragmentation of a Pegasus upper stage on 3 June 1996 stands as the worst satellite breakup on record in terms of cataloged orbital debris.  The event required special analyses to ascertain the threat to the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, which resided only 25 km below the breakup altitude, and to the STS-82 Hubble servicing mission in February 1997. 
This presentation will review the efforts at NASA JSC to measure, model, and mitigate the consequences of this breakup.  General orbital debris trends and characteristics will also be addressed. 
 

"40 Years of Earth Satellites and a Look Forward"

This talk will be similar to the one Mr. Johnson presented to the British Interplanetary Society on the 40th anniversary of Sputnik. 
 

Mr. Johnson also gave a one hour talk on the Russian Space Program.