Michael Ciannilli
Program Manager, Apollo, Challenger, Columbia Lessons Learned Program (ACCLLP), NASA
Michael “Mike” Ciannilli is the NASA’s manager of the Apollo, Challenger, Columbia Lessons Learned Program. He assumed this role in 2016, and is responsible for innovatively and effectively sharing the lessons of the past to help ensure future success.
As manager of this agency level program, Ciannilli oversees the Columbia Research and Preservation Office, which preserves all Columbia artifacts, as well as the loan program, which loans out Columbia artifacts for research and academic purposes. In addition, he gives lessons learned tours for NASA engineers, scientists, interns, executives, commercial partners, and others. During these tours, he uses the stories of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia to share what has been learned from these past mishaps to prevent recurrence in future missions. Ciannilli also does lessons learned events at Kennedy Space Center where he works to bring these past experiences and the emotions behind the accidents alive through multimedia and storytelling; these events will be expanding across the agency.