[meteorite-list] Professor Michael J. Drake, 1946-2011

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.uanews.org/node/42011    

Regents' Professor Michael J. Drake, 1946-2011
University of Arizona
September 21, 2011

Under Drake's leadership, the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
grew from a small group of geologists and astronomers into an
international powerhouse of research into the solar system.

Michael J. Drake, Regents' Professor, director of the University of
Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and head of the department of 
planetary sciences, died Wednesday at The University of Arizona Medical 
Center-University Campus in Tucson, Ariz.  He was 65.

Drake, who joined the UA planetary sciences faculty in 1973 and headed
LPL and the planetary sciences department since 1994, was the principal
investigator of the most ambitious UA project to date, OSIRIS-REx,
an $800 million mission designed to retrieve a sample of an asteroid and
return it to Earth. OSIRIS-REx is due to launch in 2016. It is the
largest grant or contract the UA has ever received.

Drake played a key role in a succession of ever more high-profile space
projects that garnered international attention for LPL and the University.

Those include the Cassini mission to explore Saturn, the Gamma-Ray 
Spectrometer onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey Orbiter, the HiRISE
camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the
Phoenix Mars Lander.

Drake also was a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the
Geochemical Society and the Meteoritical Society, and he was president
of the latter two. 

A native of Bristol, England, Drake graduated with a degree in geology
from Victoria University in Manchester, and then he left for a doctoral
program in geology from the University of Oregon, graduating in 1972.
After a postdoctoral program at the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory, Drake moved to, and immediately fell in love with, Arizona.

As a young assistant professor, Drake joined a much smaller LPL in 1973.
The lab occupied only a part of what is now the Kuiper Space Sciences
Building, and most of his colleagues came from astronomy. Planetary
sciences did not have the cachet then that it does now.

"It was, from my point of view, a strange environment," Drake wrote
earlier on LPL's website. "It's like the Tower of Babel; you talk in
your own language and your own jargon, and communicating across fields
is surprisingly difficult. It took a few years before I think most of us
began to understand what motivated the other ones, what we were really
saying. I think it helped us to speak in clearer, plain English and
minimize the jargon, because we came from such different backgrounds."

Regents' Professor Peter Strittmatter, director of the UA's Steward
Observatory and head of the UA astronomy department, said Drake used 
those communication skills to expand LPL and form close relationships 
with NASA.

"Mike thought and spoke clearly so you always knew where he stood on an
issue," Strittmatter said. "He was a superb director of LPL, a great
leader and a great personal friend. He will be sorely missed by all of
us at the University of Arizona and especially those involved in the
space sciences."

Peter Smith, the principal investigator for the Phoenix Mars Lander
mission, said he began working with Drake when Smith was building the
camera for the 1997 Mars Pathfinder.  He called Drake's handling of the 
complexities of proposal development "masterful."

"We would meet monthly to review progress and plan strategy," Smith
said. "Mike always encouraged excellence and made sure that the
University was providing full support to our programs. Over the years,
as my career progressed through various missions to Mars, he was there
when troubles surfaced and a political push was needed," said Smith, who
is also part of the OSIRIS-REx mission.

"He watched our flight projects from the sidelines; his enthusiasm made
it clear that he wished for a more direct involvement. After winning the
project of his dreams, Mike will continue to inspire and lead through
the legacy of his accomplishments."

Edgar J. McCullough, retired professor and head of the UA geosciences
and dean of the College of Science, said he and Drake became friends in
the early 1970s when they would go on weeklong backpacking excursions
around the West.

"When he was in planetary sciences and I was head of the geosciences
department, we set up a microprobe laboratory with funding from both
departments. It was the first big piece of diagnostic equipment here at
a time when geoscience was becoming more of an analytical science,"
McCullough said. "He was the kind of faculty member you wanted because
he was also strong on teaching, especially undergraduates."

McCullough said Drake helped develop promotion and tenure policies for
the college and was instrumental in establishing a joint position
between the colleges of science and education to create science
education programs. Drake also led a major undergraduate teaching effort
in planetary sciences, even though the department was created as a
graduate program.

Joaquin Ruiz, executive dean of the Colleges of Letters, Arts and
Science, said: "Mike was a distinguished scholar, an accomplished
administrator and a good friend. His students loved him for his energy,
smarts and care. He was able to run the department of planetary sciences
incredibly smoothly at the same time as he was writing significant
papers about the early evolution of the Earth and solar system and still
have time to successfully compete for OSIRIS-REx."

Timothy Swindle, the assistant director at LPL, summed it up, saying,
"Not only was he a world-class scientist, but he was a tireless advocate
for the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and all the people who have
worked here. Personally, he was a friend and mentor for me, and for many
others, and we will miss him deeply."