[IGSMAIL-4177]: My Retirement from NASA

John Degnan John.J.Degnan at nasa.gov
Wed Nov 27 08:00:14 PST 2002


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IGS Electronic Mail      02 Dec 10:49:20 PST 2002      Message Number 4177
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Author: John Degnan

To my friends and colleagues in the space geodetic community:

I am writing to inform you that I will retire from NASA on January 3, 2003. 
I filed the official paperwork yesterday.

I first came to the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) as a college 
freshman and student trainee in 1964 and had the great pleasure of being a 
junior member of the team that recorded the first laser echoes from an 
artificial satellite using the original Goddard Laser (GODLAS) system. I 
have been involved with the development of advanced Satellite Laser Ranging 
systems ever since beginning with the Goddard Standard Laser (STALAS) in 
1975, the MOBLAS and TLRS upgrades to cm quality in the 1980's, the move to 
increased automation in the early 1990's, and most recently the totally 
automated photon-counting SLR2000 system which has begun field trials.

I came to know many of you in the international space geodetic community 
when I took the position of Deputy Manager and Chief Engineer for NASA's 
Crustal Dynamics Project under John Bosworth in 1989. I have been involved 
with the NASA SLR and VLBI networks since that time. In anticipation of my 
retirement, I resigned from my position as Chairperson of the ILRS 
Governing Board in early October at the 13th International Workshop for 
Laser Ranging in Washington DC. I am pleased to report that Dr. Werner 
Gurtner of the University of Berne in Switzerland was selected by the new 
ILRS Governing Board as it's chairperson. Werner has been an extremely 
active member of the ILRS GB since its inception in 1998 and is well known 
to the GPS community as well. I leave the ILRS chairmanship in excellent hands.

One of the great pleasures of my professional career was to observe how the 
scientific community utilized the technological advances in the SLR 
hardware to make new and exciting measurements in the areas of gravity 
field, plate tectonics, Earth Orientation Parameters, oceanography, lunar 
physics, general relativity, etc. I wish to take this opportunity to 
commend and thank the space geodetic community for its resourcefulness and 
creativity in formulating and solving new scientific problems which in turn 
gave my own professional efforts relevance and meaning.

I plan to stay in the Washington DC area and continue to work in the 
science and engineering arena but in a university or corporate environment. 
I am currently considering several employment options and have not yet made 
a final decision. However, I do hope to continue my association with the 
Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics and its programs in some capacity.

I see exciting times ahead for geodesy. The SLR2000 technology has recently 
been applied successfully to an airborne photon counting imaging lidar, and 
globally contiguous high resolution mapping of moons and planets by low 
power lasers now seems feasible. I also look forward to the day when 
compact laser transponders will measure interplanetary distances to 
centimeters  and transfer time between the planets with subcentimeter 
accuracy. (see the Journal of Geodynamics, November 2002)

I look forward to seeing some of you at the AGU Fall Meeting in San 
Francisco next week and hopefully at future meetings. I wish you all 
continued success in your scientific and engineering endeavors.

Sincerely,

John

Dr. John J. Degnan
Head, Geoscience Technology Office
Mail Code 920.3
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA
Phone: 01-301-614-5860
FAX: 01-301-614-5970
E-mail: John.J.Degnan at nasa.gov

Thought for the Day:  A society grows great when old men plant trees whose 
shade they know they shall never sit in - Greek proverb



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