NASA Administrator Dan Goldin today announced that he will be resigning from
NASA, where his nine-and-a-half year tenure puts him in the history books as
NASA’s longest-serving administrator. Goldin will step down on November 17,
2001.
Planetary Society Executive Director, Louis Friedman, and Chairman of the
Board, Bruce Murray, reflected on the Goldin Era now drawing to a close.
Murray is also the former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Goldin transformed an agency badly in need of transformation,” said Murray.
“He led it from a Cold War mentality and a “bigger is better” approach into
a form — and with objectives — appropriate for the 21st century. Goldin
and the late Carl Sagan, a co-founder of The Planetary Society, developed
early a genuine rapport which led to Goldin’s setting the “search for
origins” as NASA’s overriding goal. We are deeply indebted to Goldin’s
tireless, patriotic and very perceptive leadership in a difficult time.”
Friedman said, “Dan Goldin is a public servant who made a difference. He
deserves our profound thanks for a job well done, and for his leadership in
revitalizing planetary exploration in general and Mars exploration in
particular. His forging of the international alliance on the space station
served not only the space programs of the world, but the greater
international policy objectives of his country.”
The Planetary Society led the advocacy for the Mars Surveyor program and the
inclusion of the Sojourner rover on the Pathfinder mission, which was
instituted by Goldin following the failure of Mars Observer in 1993.
