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Personnel News

Jason Crusan Is Leaving NASA

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 3, 2019
Filed under

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

10 responses to “Jason Crusan Is Leaving NASA”

  1. Richard Brezinski says:
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    Sorry to see Jason leave-he was probably one of the brightest and most capable young managers in NASA today. Its almost amazing to see someone who has done so well, advanced so quickly and who has invested so much in the program pull up and leave at such a young age. Of course he never succeeded in getting anyone to believe in the need for the Gateway and so far there is no political consensus for support so maybe he figured the handwriting was on the wall?

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Given the gridlock there is going to be in Washington until after the next election and the way private space firms are moving forward it’s not surprising. And I expect he won’t be the first.

  2. SpacePrincess says:
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    Shocking but not surprising that one of NASA’s brightest stars is leaving. Most people envisioned him to be Gerst’s successor whenever he decided to retired. He’s one of the few people in the agency that was a “doer” instead of a “talker” and who had a skill for developing commercial partnerships. This is a huge loss for the agency and its efforts to get back to the Moon but who can blame him.

    For the past year, the agency has been making the worst organizational and technology decisions possible involving projects he led that has resulted in uncertainty, long delays and cancellations of promising work across all the NASA Centers and with industry. First, they transferred Resource Prospector to SMD and then subsequently killed it to only find out after it was too late that it was the best option to get a rover back to the Moon. Then they took ½ of the AES technology portfolio and transferred it to STMD to justify their existence in the new lunar world after their previous AA spent years of their resources on a flying disk. When his team was about to release the CLPS solicitation as a follow-on to the successful Lunar CATALYST they transferred that to SMD delaying its release. After the formulation of Gateway, they transferred it to JSC and put the ISS deputy in charge. Now there’s rumors abound of a reorganization which would take the rest of the HEOMD technology portfolio and landers and move it. With all the shell games and shuffling nothing is going to get done and other countries and commercial entities will be on the Moon while NASA continues to hold meetings on reorganization and plays musical chairs. It has to be terribly demoralizing for those trying to get real work done.

    We always hear the Administrator say “we want the best and brightest working at NASA”. That all just seems like lip service when you have one of the best and brightest in the agency that started as a NASA intern get pushed out the door because of bureaucracy, power grabs and who know what other games were played. Hopefully, the Administrator will figure out where the problem lies and fix it before we lose any more of the good ones. As for Jason, hopefully he’s going to an organization that appreciates his talent for building coalitions and technology development.

    • Brian_M2525 says:
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      A real shame, but so much of NASA is games añd no progress; nothing gets produced. Let’s have another Orion or SLS. Let’s put a few more incompetent, inept people who have failed into positions of authority. I suspect NASA won’t survive for long.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Its a government bureaucracy so it will last forever because of pork, but it will just become irrelevant. Probably sooner rather then later if what Elon Musk is doing in Texas is successful.

        • fcrary says:
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          Or last forever out of inertia. Does anyone know if the United States Antarctic Service still exists? It was established as part of the State Department in the 1930s, to manage US interests in Antarctica, including territorial claims, if we ever made any (we never did.) It hasn’t has a budget or staff since sometime in the 1940s, and its functions have been taken over by the NSF’s Antarctic Program. But as far as I know (and according to someone who looked into it for a book in the 1990s) the Antarctic Service was never formally disestablished. So it’s probably still lurking in some corner of the State Department’s org chart.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            It make well still be lurking in the State Department although as you noted it’s function was taken over by the NSF when it created their Antarctic Program. But then the U.S.G.S. dates it’s ancestrt to the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clarke). But the ICC and FAB were done away with, the former after it nearly destroyed the U.S. railroad industry with its micro-management level of regulation.

            There were American claims to the Antarctic going back to the Wilkes Expedition and including new ones made by Commander Byrd and Lincoln Ellsworth, but the Stafe Department never supported them. Still if you look at old NGC maps from the 1930’s and 1940’s you should see them.

            BTW the motive to create the U.S. Antarctic Service was Germany’s claims in the Antarctic as part of their 1938 Expedition. Just like we couldn’t afford to let the Soviet Union go uncontested in space we couldn’t let the Third Reich run loose in the Antarctic uncontested.

      • tutiger87 says:
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        Maybe that’s the intent, like so much of this administration.

  3. mmealling says:
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    According to Buzz Aldrin he is leaving for a position in the Australian Space Agency.

  4. DougSpace says:
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    Over the years I emailed Jason four time with what I thought were thoughtful arguments for things such as a set of “Lunar COTS” programs, expediting a cost-effective, human-scale lander, a concept for a large, inflatable lunar habitat, and recommendation for a lunar return policy. He never responded to any of my emails. He did support the Evolvable Mars Campaign, the Asteroid Redirect Mission, and the Gateway all three of which I think are bad choices. I’m just hoping that he will be replaced by someone who will be open to the cost-effective, near-term, direct, and sustainable return of crew to the Moon using an end-to-end commercial transportation system and an expedited path to Mars as well.