Alphonso V. Diaz

Alphonso V. Diaz, known as Al Diaz, is an American public administrator and former NASA official who served as the ninth director of the Goddard Space Flight Center from 1998 to 2004 and as the agency's associate administrator for science from 2004 to 2005. He spent some four decades with the agency, beginning as a cooperative education student at the Langley Research Center in 1964.

At Langley, Diaz managed development of the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer carried by the Viking landers, the instrument that performed the first chemical analysis of Martian soil in 1976.

Diaz became deputy director of Goddard in 1996 and director in January 1998, a period during which the center reorganized its engineering workforce, launched the first spacecraft of the Earth Observing System, and conducted two Hubble servicing missions. After the loss of Columbia in 2003, administrator Sean O'Keefe asked him to lead an agency-wide review of the applicability of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's findings; the resulting document, A Renewed Commitment to Excellence, became known as the Diaz report.

He retired from NASA in 2005 and afterwards held senior financial and administrative posts at the University of California, Riverside and Purdue University, and later Marymount University.

Early life and education Diaz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, to a Hispanic family and attended Regis High School in Manhattan. and was assigned to the Instrument Research Division, where he worked on optical instrumentation—principally spectroscopy and radiometry—for the center's wind tunnels and shock tubes. He was also program manager for Galileo, manager of planetary advanced programs, and deputy director of the Solar System Exploration Division. In the role he directed the Earth science, space science, and technology programs assigned to Goddard and managed a budget of roughly $3 billion.

One of his first acts was a reorganization that withdrew engineering staff from the individual project and science organizations and consolidated them in a central engineering directorate, an arrangement intended to give engineering an independent voice and to impose consistent quality control on work delivered to projects.

Goddard's flight program during his tenure included the Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions of December 1999 and March 2002, the launch of the first Earth Observing System platforms, and a series of astrophysics and heliophysics missions; O'Keefe wrote to Diaz in April 2002 to commend the center on the successful commissioning of the RHESSI solar observatory. The center also carried NASA's principal working relationship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Diaz later recalled persistent difficulties in developing instruments for the next generation of geostationary weather satellites and in the polar-orbiting program, including damage to a NOAA spacecraft at a contractor's factory.

The review concluded that the organizational patterns the board had criticized were not confined to human spaceflight but appeared at science centers as well, and it revisited the concept of the normalization of deviance raised after the Challenger accident.

Associate administrator for science On August 8, 2004, Diaz was appointed associate administrator for science, effectively exchanging positions with Edward J. Weiler, who took over at Goddard. Administrator Michael D. Griffin subsequently approved a further shuttle servicing mission. Diaz, who had supported the robotic option, said he remained convinced it was feasible and regretted the loss of the outside interest it had attracted. He served under Córdova and her successor, Mitch Daniels, who as director of the Office of Management and Budget had earlier initiated the full-cost accounting reforms Diaz worked through at NASA.

Personal life Diaz is married to Angela Phillips Diaz.

Awards and honors NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, for work on the Viking Project Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive (1990, 1995, and 2002 or 2003) NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal (1994, 2002, 2004) Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive (1996) NASA Exceptional Service Medal (1999) Honorary Doctor of Science, Capitol College (2004) NASA Distinguished Service Medal (2005) Honorary doctorate in aerospace engineering, University of Rome (2005) Wernher von Braun Space Flight Trophy, National Space Club of Huntsville (2005) Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics