Adam Diedrich Steltzner (born 1963)[3] is an American NASA engineer who works for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

[7] NPR's Morning Edition said "he has pierced ears, wears snakeskin boots and sports an Elvis haircut,"[3] while the EE Times called him "a bit of a hipster" and a "new breed of engineer" who is media savvy.

[6][8] Steltzner, born 1963,[3] is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area[6] and came from a family that was financially well off,[9] his father being an heir to the Schilling spice fortune.

[10] He struggled in classes in high school, earned a failing grade in geometry, and was told by his father he would never amount to anything but a ditch digger.

[9] As The New Yorker put it, "He was a college dropout and small-town playboy (he briefly dated the model Carré Otis), an assistant manager at an organic market and an occasional grower of weed.

[17] Steltzner speaks publicly on the topics of leadership, innovation, team building, and the power of curiosity and exploration.

[18] Steltzner is employed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he designed, tested and built the sky crane landing system for the Curiosity rover.

"[19] The sky crane allows for a precise landing ellipse opening up many areas of Mars for exploration that were previously inaccessible due to uneven terrain.

Steltzner is often profiled by the press in human interest stories[23] with a focus on a "rock and roll" engineer image; for example he was called "the face of the 2012 Mars Science Laboratory mission" by the EE Times, who also called him "a bit of a hipster";[6] he was interviewed on National Public Radio which noted his "Elvis haircut",[3] and profiled again on NPR in a piece called "Red Planet, Green Thumb: How A NASA Scientist Engineers His Garden".