Editor's note: This obituary for noted astronomer Michael Drake was released by the University of Arizona to commemorate his distinguished career as a planetary scientist.
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 (Sept. 21) at The University of Arizona Medical Center-University Campus in Tucson, Ariz. He was 65.
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.
"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."
"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."
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."
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