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Mark Geyer Is The New JSC Center Director

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 14, 2018
Mark Geyer Is The New JSC Center Director

NASA Announces That Mark Geyer Is The New Director of Johnson Space Center, NASA
“NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Monday the selection of Mark Geyer as the next director of the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. He’ll assume the director’s position on May 25, when current Center Director and former astronaut Ellen Ochoa retires after 30 years at the agency.”

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

13 responses to “Mark Geyer Is The New JSC Center Director”

  1. Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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    This was a chance for Bridenstine to put a shot across the bow that the stay the course plan is ripe for an upheaval but sadly that was not the outcome. JSC is in dire need of a transformation to embrace the new commercial era, modern tools to do business and break out of the not invented here mentality instead jsc 2.018 sub paragraph 3 gobbly gook of innovation buzzwords will continue but hey they got free range parking on super flex Fridays.

    • Brian_M2525 says:
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      I have to agree. I was looking for Bridenstine to show change. Geyer mean Bridenstine is listening to Gerstenmaier. Lets see, what’s wrong with that? Premature Shuttle shut down wit no consideration for fixes, layoffs of everyone associated with Shuttle before trying to reestablish Shuttle supply lines for Constellation, Constellation out of control for a flags and footprints mission, Orion out of control-design, dollars and schedule, the failure of safe, simple and soon, the shutdown of US human space flight, no plan for the future, and now we get more of the same. Very disappointing.

      • Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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        Not the leadership the center needs but the manager it deserves.

  2. Matthew Black says:
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    I hope his time being the head of the Orion program at Lockheed-Martin wont bias him against Commercial sourced spacecraft for beyond Earth orbit missions.

    • jamesmuncy says:
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      He has been JSC’s Orion Director. Not Lockheed Martin’s.

      • Natalie Clark says:
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        Yeah right. – His gov people bully civil servants to do whatever Lockheed wants. Moreover, we civil servants are told that The Orion Group, maybe even other JSS missions, operate under what they call “complicit liability”. “Complicit liability “ means we civil servants give Lockheed the direction they want and the government is liable for the decision because the civil servants gave the direction. Under FAR the gov isn’t suppose to give companies that kind of contractual direction because it’s the company who is supposed to decide how to do the work. We civil servant who refused and even engaged NASA legal found out quickly that the legal admitted it was wrong but because the high level JSC management is involved they won’t even do much. Maybe with the new IG rules, maybe the IG would actually do their jobs rather than cover up wrongdoing. There’s records of this and multiple witnesses. Easy to prove since one of the Orion pm gloated about “complicit liability” tactics.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          You guys fight internecine wars while the other guys actually fly stuff.

          • Natalie Clark says:
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            Those civil servants who are corrupt are just as much part of the problem as the those who are corrupt at the aerospace industry, including Lockheed. I’m not promoting gov vs private industry. It doesn’t matter when they’re both in bed with each other. Unfortunately the the corruption rises to the top.

            The fact is on the Orion program civil servants are bullied to approve things Lockheed wanted to dictate that adversely affected the program and was profitable to Lockheed. The tax payers are being cheated. They are paying for the work to be done over and over, or purposely wrong, delaying the Orion program flight. These aerospace companies are so greedy, they find it more profitable to purposely direct the government to direct them to do something that purposely delays the program, requires wasteful work, obviously doesn’t work, on an on.

            The fact that the even go so far as to violate the FAR and the government management is so willing to assume liability for what Lockheed wants is also very disturbing. The fact is it’s very profitable for nasa programs and aerospace industry to have programs not produce and drag on way beyond that was scheduled and budgeted intentionally. The taxpayers are being cheated by both the civil servant managers and aerospace companies who are in bed with each other. It’s now at an unprecedented level, and the worst offenders are even being promoted for it.

            The ends don’t justify the means. In the Orion program case, your implication of the ends justifying the means isn’t true either. Just look how bad the Orion program has been managed all these years. Now you know it’s been done on intentionally even going so far as to violate the FAR which was actually are good practice and actually do, when followed ( don’t forget virtually all contracts have been contractually tailored) facilitate programs working to meet budget and schedule. It’s more profitable to purposely not meet budget and schedule.

            The fact that nasa program managers do what Lockheed at the expense of what is technically correct (on purpose), delays, leads to huge cost overruns, and even accept liability for the government for that decision shows you just how unpredcidented the corruption has become. The taxpayers are being taken for a ride.

        • Fake Name says:
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          You post extensively on Infowars and are not listed in NED. I doubt you are, in fact, a civil servant.

          • Natalie Clark says:
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            Recently retired from NASA with 30 yrs civil service. Here’s a simple examples on the Orion program. A contractor in Houston was supposed to write up a test plan on how to test and characterize space items. He didn’t know how to do it. We civil servants pointed him to some engineers from Their contractor division in California who know and could help. The Houston engineer could have called them in California and pretty much write up a test plan in a month. The Houston Contractor engineer refused to contact them, or anyone else, preferring to keep his funding for a year to work up a test plan. The Houston engineer basically had to get himself up to speed with the design of test instrumentation the lengthy hard way rather than call the right people and discuss/get help. So we tax payers had to pay 1 year vs 1 month (roughly 10 fold) to reinvent a test plan. The Contractor doesn’t care because they got more money and profit. The civil servants knowing let this happen even though nasa legal opined the contractor should used the expertise they describe their entire company as having rather than reinvent the work. But guess what the NASA management was fine paying for a years work rather than 1 month if within their contractor division experts in California were asked to be involved or share documentation.

            Another simple example to give you an idea how NASA programs operate: the astronauts in a big disagreement got their way to have a very nice millions of dollars window in the ISS cupola. The windows were fabricated to high specs to enable high quality photography. The JSC program manager who lost the window battle saw to it that scratch panes were permanently installed. The scratch panes were supposed to be removable to allow the astronauts to take high quality photographs. What the astronauts ended up doing when they wanted high quality imagery was to take pictures thru the Russian side which doesn’t have scratch panes. The JSC in a meeting laughed one time bragging that the scratch panes will prevent the astronauts from ever getting to see the results how good their window was – they’ll have to get whatever thru the very scratched up scratch panes. The astronaught didn’t even have a chance to review the decision to permanently put in scratch panes. Then nasa JSC went through rounds and rounds of bickering, for about a year, with the astronauts requesting permission to remove the scratch panes for a particular important photograph mission. What a sad waste of money to put in a nice millions of dollar window trying to get high quality imagery that NASA is so famous for only to have scratched up scratch panes permanently bolted in behind the astronauts backs getting it signed off so they couldn’t even have an opportunity to discuss their needs. Why do civil servants and contractors both love to do this in cahoots with each other. Once the decision was made to pay for the millions of dollar nice window to enable getting high quality imagery for the space station don’t you think the tax payers deserved the engineers to do their best to get the best imagery possible rather than purposely have scratched up scratch panes bolted in.

            Even putting nice scratch panes in from the get go would have helped a little bit. The very scratched up scratch panes were used because they were supposed to be removable – but later bolted in permanently on purpose.

            The nasty fun and games going on behind the scenes are mind blowing. Don’t forget dthe contractors profit is based on the total cost. The bigger the cost the bigger the profit. The economics reward the inefficiency , ineptness, and corruption. Why do it right and do your best the first time when you get to be paid over and over to get it right.

      • Matthew Black says:
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        Thanks for the correction. I was certain I saw somewhere that he was described as the LockMart Orion head. Met him in July 2011. Nice man.

  3. tutiger87 says:
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    Nice guy, but….

  4. RocketScientist327 says:
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    This is a brilliant move by Mr. Bridenstine. People need to realize you make the changes you can and don’t waste or expend political capital in a place that will give you zero return. Bridenstine will leave his mark by the people who are in mid-level managerial and leadership positions and not those at the top.

    JSC is tied at the hip to the SLS /Orion failed experiment and porkulous project. Why put a NextGen center director who will face obstacles at every turn? This just seals JSC’s fate and makes them more obsolete as we commercialize space. This is JSC, not Ames or JPL. We are wasting billions on this and we will always wonder what would have happened if we could have made investments and empower the private sector in a more DIRECT way.

    Besides we do not say “Houston” anymore… we say “Hawthorne”.