WASHINGTON -
Ending months of speculation, the White House announced early Saturday that
U.S. President Barack Obama intends to nominate former space shuttle astronaut
Charles Bolden to become NASA administrator.
Lori
Garver, a Washington-based aerospace consultant and former NASA official who
advised the Obama campaign on space matters, was named Bolden's deputy. Both
posts require Senate confirmation.
Bolden, a retired
U.S. Marine Corps major general, met with Obama at
the White House on May 19 to discuss the job.
NASA's
deputy assistant administrator for public affairs, Bob Jacobs, used the microblogging
service Twitter to spread
the word about the announcement.
"WH
[White House] just announced intent to nominate Bolden as NASA Administrator
and Garver as Deputy Administrator. More details coming," Jacobs wrote on
his Twitter page around 8:45 a.m. EDT (1245 GMT) today , just a few minutes
after NASA Mission Control decided to postpone space shuttle Atlantis' landing
another day to because of poor weather at Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
The seven
astronauts aboard Atlantis are now slated to land
Sunday to end a 13-day mission to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope for
the fifth and final time.
Mission
Control radioed the news of Bolden's nomination to Atlantis commander Scott
Altman so he could alert his crew.
"Roger,
thanks for the news on the announcement," Altman said. "I guess it wasn't any
of us up here on the flight after all."
Altman and
his crew spoke with Obama on Wednesday during a private call that was later
aired on NASA TV.
"We're soon
going to have a new NASA Administrator," Obama said during the call. "I can't
disclose it to you, because I've got to have hoopla on the announcement back
here on Earth. But I can assure you that it's a high priority of mine to
restore that sense of wonder that space can provide and to make sure that we've
got a strong sense of mission, not just within NASA but for the country as a
whole."
Altman
thanked the President and said he hoped his crew's mission to fix
Hubble for the last-ever time helped capture some of that sense
of exploration. He also tried asked the president who his pick for NASA chief
might be.
"Just so we're sure, the new administrator's not any of us on the flight deck
right now, is it?," Altman asked.
The president
laughed.
"You know,
I'm not going to give you any hints," Obama said.
SPACE.com
senior editor Tariq Malik contributed to this report from Cape Canaveral, Fla. SPACE.com is providing continuous
coverage of NASA's last mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Click here for landing
coverage, mission updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.
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