February 11, 2026 Luncheon with Jim Bridenstine

Jim Bridenstine, managing partner for The Artemis Group, speaker, and media contributor, was the 13th Administrator of NASA, where he was responsible for managing NASA’s 70,000-person workforce and $23 billion annual budget. As administrator, he led NASA in advancing American aeronautics, science, and space exploration objectives.

Under Bridenstine’s leadership, NASA launched the Artemis program to explore the Moon and prepare for missions to Mars. Through the Artemis program, NASA developed the Orion crew capsule and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the most powerful rocket ever built. These state-of-the-art systems will help build the Gateway, an open architecture space station orbiting the Moon for deep space science and discovery. Under the Artemis program, astronauts will learn how to live and work on another world for long periods of time utilizing in situ resources in preparation for long endurance missions to Mars.

Prior to serving at NASA, Bridenstine represented Oklahoma’s First Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served on the Armed Services Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee. He was part of a small group of Strategic Forces Subcommittee members who created the Space Force.

Bridenstine’s career in federal service began in 1998 as a pilot in the U.S. Navy. After flight school, his first assigned aircraft was the E-2C Hawkeye which he flew off the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. It was there that he flew combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and accrued most of his 1,900 flight hours and 333 arrested landings on an aircraft carrier. In these campaigns he earned an Air Medal and a Navy Commendation Medal with Combat “V” among others.

After transitioning from active duty, Bridenstine returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to be the executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium, continued serving in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and eventually ran for U.S. Congress.