A polarizing figure, the agencys longest-serving chief drew praise from some for his profound impact on a once-nimble NASA that had grown into a bloated bureaucracy after the halcyon days of the Apollo moon-landing project.
But in other circles, his many detractors literally cheered as Goldin announced plans to leave the agency Nov. 17 after a record 3,517-day stint as head of the nations civil space agency.
And that came as no big surprise to Goldin, a man known for his aggressive and sometimes abrasive management style, one predicated primarily on gut-wrenching change.
"You want to know something? If you come to a job like this and love to be loved, you will never do the right thing," Goldin told reporters during a cross-country teleconference.
"Now I believe in democracy. There are people who are entitled to their opinion. And all I can say to them is, `So be it. I believe this is a better agency than it was before, and the person who comes after me will make it a better agency yet," he said.
"I not only have no apologies, but I am thrilled with the performance (of NASA)."
Since Goldin took the helm at NASA on April 1, 1992, the agency has launched 171 space missions, only 11 of which ended in failure. Thats a 93.6 percent success rate.
The number of space-science missions launched per year grew to four from one. The average cost of those missions dropped from over $1 billion to about $250 million, and the time it took to develop spacecraft dropped from a decade or more to two or three years.
The International Space Station, meanwhile, went from the drawing boards to a fully functional orbital research laboratory that has been permanently staffed now for almost a year.
"Clearly, without his leadership, we would not have a space station at all," said Kennedy Space Center Director Roy Bridges, a former astronaut and veteran shuttle pilot. "Today, we are celebrating 1,062 days in space with a well-functioning International Space Station that benefits all humankind."
First proposed by then-President Reagan in his State of the Union address in 1984, the space station was a paper project for a decade. NASA spent $10 billion on the project between 1984 and 1994 without manufacturing a single piece of hardware.
Redesigned nine times during that decade, the development of the space station took off on Goldins watch. The first two building blocks of the station were launched and linked in orbit in late 1998, and the first full-time crew boarded the outpost Nov. 2, 2000.
In the 13 months between July 2000 and August 2001, the international complex grew from a small, vacant, two-roomer to an outpost that now is 17 stories tall, weighs 150 tons and has the same amount of pressurized space as a standard three-bedroom house.
"Mr. Goldin has done a lot for this agency," current station skipper Frank Culbertson told ground engineers at NASAs Mission Control Center after the news of the NASA chiefs resignation was beamed up to the outpost.
"Its an important piece of news and I hope people will recognize what he has done."
Considered by many to be one of the most complicated engineering endeavors of all time, the raising of the space station involves 100,000 people from 16 nations on four continents.
The job simply could not be accomplished without NASAs $8 billion fleet of space shuttles, the sole transport vehicle for U.S. segments of the outpost.
And during Goldins tenure, the standing army required to ready shuttles for flight was halved while launch costs were cut significantly. At the same time, an ambitious shuttle upgrade program reduced the statistical chances of a shuttle launch catastrophe to 1 in 437 from 1 in 72.
Next page: "Goldin challenged this agency."
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