Mike Gazarik Is Leaving NASA
Ball Aerospace Names Michael Gazarik as Technology Director
“Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has hired Michael Gazarik as Director for its Office of Technology on the Boulder campus effective March 2. Dr. Gazarik will lead the alignment of Ball’s technology development resources with business development and growth strategies.”
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Statement: “Mike’s experienced leadership and commitment has been critical to building the strong foundation upon which our Space Technology Mission Directorate now stands,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Through his hard work and vision, he’s developed an innovative, cross-cutting organization that creates the new knowledge and capabilities needed to enable our future missions. Mike’s proven that technology drives exploration and is a critical component of our journey to Mars. His tireless work and dedication to fostering innovation at NASA will be sorely missed.”
NASA Associate Administrator for Space Technology Michael Gazarik Statement: “It’s been a great honor to lead a team that has, for the first time in more than a decade, created a robust, relevant and innovative space technology program at NASA. As my family and I embark on a new chapter in our lives and I accept an aerospace industry position, I depart knowing that the NASA team is well on its way to achieving important space technology milestones that will enable our journey to Mars and beyond.”
Good for NASA. Bad for Ball. Gazarik is an awful manager utterly out of his depth, a “technologist” (really instrument maker) without vision, analysis, or instinct, and a casually corrupt civil servant who’s dumb enough to note the revolving door payoff he received for GPM in his own press release. He took Bobby Braun’s noble experiment and ran it into the ground. After a half-decade and a few billion taxpayer dollars spent, the organization has little fully demonstrated spacecraft technology to show except for a few Android-based cubesats that Pete Worden had to force on Gazarik. He’s up there with Doc Horowitz on the short list of worst government space program managers ever.
Yikes.
It is very odd that there has been no mention of this through the official NASA communication channels.
Wow! Former OCT can’t say their name? Classy!
Seriously doubt Dr. Braun would agree with anything said by “Former OCT”. Zed is right, easy to take cheap shots from behind the veil anonymity. I take extreme exception to the unfounded and libelous accusation of corruption. Have you no shame?
Former OCT obviously has an axe to grind. But I agree that Mr. Gazarik’s new position at Ball looks like a quid pro quo for repeatedly saving Ball’s troubled GPM mission from cancellation while other STMD missions like Sunjammer have been terminated. And it’s not an unfounded or libelous accusation since Ball’s press release references the connection. I’d also note that ATK and Moog have offered a flight-tested green propellant for years now, making support for GPM questionable from day one. This is at least worth a cursory IG investigation.
I’d also question the return that NASA is getting for the ~$600 million spent each year on STMD. Top priorities from the technology decadal like ASRG and in-space cryo propellant storage have gone nowhere while STMD has expended limited resources on low priorities like solar sails and green propellants. Or worse, STMD has repeated out-of-date work like Boeing’s composite cryotank, which duplicates at a smaller scale NG’s work in this area under SLI a decade ago. The organization is also very bloated. STMD has only 10 program-direct managers (PMs or PEs), but more than 40 deputy AAs, resource analysts, communications and outreach types, and strategic analysis types overseeing them. It’s hard not to lay poor priority, mission, and organizational management at the feet of the individual who has held the AA seat for several years now.
Isn’t there some kind of official time-out before one voluntarily leaves NASA and goes to work for a contractor in the private sector??