Randy “Komrade” Bresnik was selected as an astronaut in 2004. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in May 1989.  During his military career, he attended the Marine Corps Weapons and Tactics Instructors Course (WTI) and Naval Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN). After attending U.S. Naval Test Pilot’s School he became an F/A-18 Test Pilot and was eventually deployed to  Kuwait to fly combat missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A veteran of Space Shuttle mission STS-129, he has also trained as a  Cave-a-naut with the European Space Agency to test living deep beneath the Earth’s surface as well as an Aqua-naut for NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operation (NEEMO) 19.  In space, Bresnik most recently served  as the Commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 53 and  flight engineer for Expedition 52. He has more than 32 hours of Spacewalk experience over the course of 5 EVAs. A retired Colonel in  the United States Marine Corps, he has logged more than 7,000 hours in 91 types of aircraft/rotorcraft/gliders and an additional 3,600 hours in spacecraft. He is a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP).Currently, he serves as the Assistant-to-the-Chief of  the Astronaut Office for Exploration managing the development and testing of everything that will operate beyond low earth orbit on Artemis missions.

Ms. Bresnik serves as the Associate General Counsel for theInternational and Space Law for NASA’s Office of General Counsel, Washington,D.C.  In this role her duties include serving as the lead forinternational and space law matters to all organizational components of NASA toensure legal implementation of NASA’s international matters.  She overseasand advises on senior-level negotiations among NASA and international spaceagency representatives for procurements and agreements and legislative andpolicy initiatives and serves on U.S. government working groups related tospace law and policy.  She was lead counsel for the design, operation andutilization of the ISS and Gateway Programs for almost two decades and wasprimary counsel for NASA’s implementation of the first private astronautmission to ISS.  She has also been instrumental in NASA’s Artemis missionsto include negotiating the Gateway platform agreement, advising on the draftingof the Artemis Accords and advising on cooperative activities on the lunarsurface.  She serves as part of the U.S. delegation to the United NationsOuter Space Legal Subcommittee which aims to increase coherence and synergy ininternational cooperation in space activities at all levels. 

Before joining NASA in 2004, she also held positions withthe Office of the General Counsel of the Air Force and the Undersecretary ofthe Air Force for International Affairs at the Pentagon and a position withNorthrop Grumman’s Air Combat Systems and Unmanned Air Systems and clerked forthe Superior Court of New Jersey, in Camden, New Jersey.  She is also anadjunct Professor of Space Law and faculty advisor for the Space Law Society atthe University of Houston Law Center and has lectured as a Fulbright Specialist. She speaks often both domestic and internationally on topics of space law.