Tara Ruttley

Tara Ruttley is chief scientist for Orbital Reef, Blue Origin’s future commercial space station in low Earth orbit. Before she joined Blue Origin, Ruttley managed engineering and science plans for the International Space Station (ISS) at NASA. From 2018 to 2022 she was NASA’s associate chief scientist for exploration and applied research at NASA headquarters in the Office of the Chief Scientist, where she represented the human, biological, and physical sciences performed on the ISS and planned Artemis lunar missions. Earlier, Ruttley was associate chief scientist for ISS at the Johnson Space Center, where she spent a decade managing, evaluating, and communicating ISS science activities from the period of “ISS assembly complete” through the booming “utilization period” where ISS science goals were maximized.