Prior to his present position, Bartoe was Director of Operations and Utilization in the Space Station Office of NASA Headquarters from 1990 to 1994. He also served as Chief Scientist for the Space Station from 1987 to 1990.
Before coming to NASA Headquarters, he flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-51-F (July 29 to August 6, 1985) as a civilian Navy payload specialist. A physicist by training, Bartoe was co-investigator on two solar physics investigations aboard this mission, designated Spacelab 2, that were designed to study features of the Sun's outer layers. In completing this flight, Bartoe traveled over 2.8 million miles in 126 Earth orbits and logged over 190 hours in space.