Bale Dalton

Bale Dalton served as NASA chief of staff from January 2024 to January 2025 and deputy chief of staff from May 2021 to December 2023. As chief of staff, he was responsible for coordinating the management and execution of initiatives, programs, and policies in critical areas of concern to the administrator and deputy administrator and ensuring that the strategic goals established by the administrator and deputy administrator were achieved.  

During his tenure, his principal concerns were risk decision making, emerging technologies, space security interests, safety and mission assurance, human spaceflight operations, space communications and navigation, and diplomacy through shared concerns in space policy. Dalton was a senior advisor to the administrator and deputy administrator for budgetary and program management decisions and was the primary political liaison with other agencies throughout the government, especially concerning space security issues. He also represented NASA leadership to partner international space agencies and senior leadership throughout industry.  

At the direction of the administrator, Dalton maintained awareness and structure around risk decision making processes, particularly concerning James Webb Space Telescope launch and initial operations, Artemis I flight test, International Space Station operations, commercial crew operational and test flights, Mars Sample Return architecture, Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions, and Artemis campaign follow on programs including Artemis II risk acceptance, human landing systems, space suits, and agreements on international partner participation.  

Alongside the deputy administrator, he helped finalized lasting strategies for NASA, including Moon to Mars program office and the agency’s annual Architecture Concept Reviews, current and future operations in the microgravity environment of low earth orbit, and sustainability in all space environments. A champion for emerging technologies, he contributed to the agency’s quantum computing and artificial intelligence structure and strategy, advanced nuclear propulsion efforts, and championed space communications and navigation operations, both on Earth and in the cislunar environment, especially optical communications.    

He also managed the agency’s executive secretariat, directing efforts to make front office operations, including decision making processes and Office of the Inspector General and Government Accountability Office audit liaison, more professional and more efficient. 

For these and other efforts throughout his tenure, Dalton was awarded NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal. 

A native of Orlando, Florida, Dalton was previously a program director at Air Center Helicopters, Inc., an expeditionary aviation services provider headquartered in Burleson, Texas. Dalton also served as military legislative assistant to Nelson in the U.S. Senate and as a foreign affairs officer in the Secretary’s Office of Global Partnerships at the Department of State.

A naval aviator with multiple deployments in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom, Dalton commanded the U.S. Navy’s special operations support squadron, Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron EIGHT FIVE at Naval Air Station North Island, and he was reserve component commander of Training Wing FIVE at Naval Air Station Whiting Field. He continues service as Navy Reserve lead of the Defense Innovation Unit headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Dalton holds a Bachelor of Science in ocean engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.