Scott Poteet

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Scott Poteet
Born	(1973-12-07) December 7, 1973 (age 50) Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S.[1]
Education	University of New Hampshire (BS) University of Colorado Colorado Springs (MA)
Military career
Nickname(s)	"Kidd"
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Years of service	1998–2016
Rank	Lieutenant colonel
Combat operations	Northern Watch Southern Watch Joint Guardian Freedom's Sentinel Resolute Support
Space career
Time in space	4 days, 22 hours and 13 minutes
Missions	Polaris Dawn

Scott "Kidd" Poteet (born December 7, 1973) is an American retired pilot from the United States Air Force. He was the pilot of the Polaris Dawn mission in 2024, a privately funded human spaceflight operated by SpaceX for Jared Isaacman.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Outdoor education at the University of New Hampshire and later attended the Air Command and Staff College and earned a Master's degree in counseling and leadership from University of Colorado Colorado Springs in a program jointly operated with the Air Force Academy.

Scott Poteet is a retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel who served 18 years in a variety of roles including commanding officer of the 64th Aggressor Squadron, pilot in the USAF Thunderbirds (Position 4), test and evaluation pilot, and commercial pilot. Poteet has over 3,200 flight hours on the F-16, A-4, T-38, T-37, T-3 and Alpha Jet. He logged over 400 combat hours during Operations Northern Watch, Southern Watch, Joint Guardian, Freedom's Sentinel, and Resolute Support.^[2]

After retiring from the Air Force, Poteet worked as a director of business development at Draken International from 2016 to 2020 and then as the vice president of strategy at Shift4 from 2020 to 2022, under CEO Jared Isaacman. During his time at Shift4, Poteet also trained then served as the mission director of Inspiration4, the first all-civilian human spaceflight mission led by Isaacman as commander.

In 2022, Poteet was selected to serve as the spacecraft pilot of the Polaris Dawn mission, which flew in September 2024. During the flight Poteet was the backup to Isaacman, the mission commander, who successfully completed the first commercial spacewalk.^[3]

Poteet and his wife Kristen have two daughters and one son. He is a runner and triathlete, competing in 15 Ironman triathlons since 2000, including four Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.^[4]

He appears as a mission director in the 2021 docuseries Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space.

• Polaris program