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Mark Sirangelo's Short Tenure At NASA

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 24, 2019
Filed under
Mark Sirangelo's Short Tenure At NASA

Resignation Letter From Mark Sirangelo To NASA Administrator Bridenstine
“My notice today is for an end to my NASA employment on May 31, 2019. Due to complex nature of the efforts NASA is engaged in, I am open to discussing this situation further before that or to discussing a return to NASA in the future should the situation change. Meanwhile, I will start organizing a transition plan for the many things that I have work on and on list of outstanding activities. Please let me know who you would like me to work with on external messaging.”
NASA Internal Memo: Appointment of Mark Sirangelo, 9 April 2019
“I am pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Mark Sirangelo as a Special Assistant to the Administrator. In this role, Mark will have broad responsibility to work across the Mission Directorates to further develop the agency’s plans for the Exploration Campaign. This includes a strategy to meet the Administration’s policy to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024. He will also lead the planning for the proposed agency restructuring to create the Moons to Mars Mission Directorate that will manage the programs to develop the Gateway, human rated lander and surface systems to return to the Moon and establish a permanent presence. The new proposed Directorate will also manage the Exploration Research and Technology programs to enable capabilities required for exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond.”

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

7 responses to “Mark Sirangelo's Short Tenure At NASA”

  1. Daniel Woodard says:
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    Perhaps I am missing something but why was a new directorate needed? It doesn’t sound like the mission plans have changed.

  2. jamesmuncy says:
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    read my comment to the previous post, Daniel.

  3. fcrary says:
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    I know some scientists who have taken significantly less senior positions at NASA Headquarters. As I understand it, the paper work over things like conflicts of interest takes more than two months to complete. And there are very few things they are allowed to do until that’s done. If the same thing is the case for a “Special Assistant to the Administrator”, then Mr. Sirangelo effectively never started working.

    • jamesmuncy says:
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      Mark started at NASA in a purely advisory role months ago. The formal announcement with this title was in lieu of announcing him as AA/Moon Mars, since Congress had turned down the reorg in the omnibus.

  4. gunsandrockets says:
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    Congress prefers NASA organized just the way it is now, as a perfect instrument for launching pork. Actual exploration? Pshaw. That’s just window dressing for the rubes, I mean the taxpayers the taxpayers!

    Exploration must never endanger the true purpose of NASA. So no wonder Sirangelo bailed out. He must be one of those odd dreamers who actually believes in the old dead hopes. I wonder how many more dreamers are still working at NASA?

    By the way you hopeless NASA dreamers, I hear SpaceX and Blue Origin are hiring, hint hint.