Castro Valley Grad Gets Us To The Moon

Courtesy of Vicki Stadelman

David Stadelman checking the Orion capsule test mockup at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Artemis I is uncrewed, but astronauts are already training in the module for future Artemis flights, which will carry crews.

David Stadelman, a Castro Valley native and 2002 graduate of Castro Valley High School, stands in June with the Orion spaceship he helped build. Blasting off from Florida on November 16, it orbited the moon for 6 days before returning to Earth on Dec. 11.

Americans cheered as the Orion space capsule splashed down in the Pacific on December 11 after orbiting the moon, but they probably didn’t know that a Castro Valley native played a key role in the Artemis Project that sent it there. 

David Stadelman is a project engineer at the Lockheed-Martin Project Management Team that builds Orion for the moon-orbit project. Artemis I is uncrewed, but future Artemis missions will have crews that will orbit the moon and eventually return humans there after 50 years away. 

“It’s exciting to be a part of this. I really enjoy working on something that will be in the history books,” he said.

Stadelman graduated from Castro Valley High School in 2002. He studied mechanical engineering at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City for a year but left to go on a two-year mission for his church to Brazil. 

“That international experience helped me later in my career when I was negotiating in Italy, say, about their part in space missions,” Stadelman continued. 

He came back and switched his major to business, graduating in 2009. He started out managing government buildings for the federal General Services Administration, but his negotiating skills led him to Lockheed Martin.

There, he’s led negotiations with business partners, both private and governmental, around the world. Currently, with Lockheed Martin as the prime contractor for Artemis, his team handles changes NASA needs to make in components produced by some 50 subcontractors.

NASA says it doesn’t plan to stop with Artemis I. They plan Artemis II, with a crew looping around the moon, for 2024 and Artemis III, which will return astronauts to the moon’s surface in 2025 or a bit later.  

Artemis III will also put a space station, called Gateway, in orbit around the moon to use for later lunar missions, the agency said.  

Lockheed-Martin and Stadelman already have their part of those plans well underway. He’s already been in negotiations with NASA over Lockheed Martin’s role in Artemis V, VI, and beyond. 

“The Nov 15th launch felt like kind of a family affair, as Dave (with an in-person vantage) texting photos and comments to us in Castro Valley and to his brother, Stan Jr, in Livermore,” said his mother Vicki Stadelman. She still lives with her husband Stan Sr. in the house her sons grew up in.

“The excitement of this historic space mission was cranked up a notch when we realize that our own son contributed to its success,” Vicki said.  “My husband says, ‘Both boys continue to surprise us and make us proud!’” 

An FBI agent investigating David for his first security clearance had once asked Vicki to describe her son in one word.

“Wonderful,” she replied.

The agent closed his book, thanked her, and left. Vicki said she knew David had gotten his clearance.