The space business was sacrificed to give them guaranteed employment for years to come, I think that is more than a fair trade for handing in some illiquid shares in a private company. At least with ASTC shares they have a chance to sell them going forward. Trey is getting compensated in another fashion (check my 2nd link), ~$700K for doing this deal as apparently it is a change of control even though he still remains CEO of Astrotech ;-).
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
