Charles Justiz is a pilot, corporate aviation safety consultant and the author of Specific Impulse. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and a former officer of the United States Air Force, Justiz spent tours of duty as an instructor pilot at Webb Air Force Base as well as doing flight test at Eglin Air Force Base. Retired from NASA as of June 1, 2010, he was rated as both an instructor pilot and an examiner pilot in the Astronaut T-38, the Shuttle Training Aircraft (with more than 25 years of experience and 15,000+ Shuttle approaches), the C-9 and in the 747 Shuttle Carrier.

Overall, Justiz has logged in excess of 15,000 flight hours in more than 100 different types of aircraft, including NASA’s weightless training aircraft affectionately known as the “Vomit Comet” and the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Dr. Justiz developed the Crew Resource Management program for NASA aviators and pushed to get it adopted, was the program manager for developing an on-board landing simulation system for Space Shuttle pilots to use while on orbit and has been the Chief of Aviation Safety for NASA.

This highly experienced aviator is the author of 20 technical papers on in-flight simulation, as well as 30 technical papers on ionized plasma flows around charged spacecraft. Justiz is also a former instructor for the University of Colorado, where he taught several graduate courses in astrodynamics and spacecraft mission design.

Currently, he holds an adjunct associate professorship at the University of Houston in aerospace engineering. A first generation Cuban-American, Justiz holds a doctorate degree from the University of Houston for his research in Thermo Physics and Plasma Dynamics and is a NASA Doctoral Fellow. He lives in Seabrook, Texas, with his wife, Dayna Steele, author of Rock to the Top: What I Learned about Success from the World’s Greatest Rock Stars, three sons and a faithful Labrador.