WASHINGTON --
NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, who holds the record as the longest single-term chief of the space agency, said he plans to stay on the job beyond the November presidential election and at least to Inauguration Day.
"I serve at the pleasure of the president but I wouldn't think of walking out before January 20," Goldin told SPACE.com. "People who think that just don't know me. I feel an incredible responsibility to this president and vice president.
"I wouldn't walk off the football field with 10 minutes to play," he said.
Goldin, 60, has served as administrator for nearly eight and a half years and is the eighth man to hold the position. Appointed to the job on April 1, 1992 by President George Bush, Goldin has continued through President Clinton's two terms.
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| Donna Shirley meets with (from left) NASA administrator Daniel Goldin, Vice President Al Gore, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory director Edward Stone. Photo credit: NASA
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Goldin refused to say whether he might seek to stay on into a new administration under either Democratic
Vice President Al Gore or Republican Governor George W. Bush of Texas.
"I just don't know what the agenda's going to be," he said. "This is bigger than me. I feel once the election is over, everyone in America has to support the new president. Whether I have unfinished business or not is irrelevant."
Setting the record
Last November, Goldin surpassed
James Webb as the longest continuous-term NASA administrator. If Goldin can hang on until March 5, 2001, he will eclipse James Fletcher as the longest serving of all of NASA's chiefs. Fletcher served a total of eight years, 11 months during split terms in the 1970s and 1980s.
"That's irrelevant. That doesn't mean anything to me," Goldin said. "I didn't come to the job to make the record."
What drives him, he said, is the opportunity "to work with the finest people in the world. This is the greatest agency and this is the greatest thing I've done in my life…I thought I'd be taking victory laps by now. But what's interesting is, I'm still working with an incredible intensity. I'm still working until 10 or 11 at night."
No agency administrator or Cabinet-level secretary is required by law to submit a resignation when the new president takes the oath of office on January 20, 2001, but most do so out of courtesy to the new administration.
Nagging rumors
Rumors have persisted for months that Goldin planned to leave before the November elections. In some cases, Goldin has fueled the speculation about his departure.
More than once he has talked about former colleagues at TRW and elsewhere who have gone on to amass fortunes in the internet world. Goldin also has told reporters that his wife, Judi, is eager to return to California to be closer to their two grandchildren.
The White House, in fact, became aware two years ago that Goldin was feeling out the job market in California. But nothing came of it and presidential aides privately say that
Goldin is respected and admired at the White House.
Goldin called rumors about his future "incredibly stupid speculation. I don't get angry about it. I just roll on the floor and laugh."
A busy schedule
His aides say Goldin shows no signs of slowing down in a job he adores.
"I can't think of any job, no matter how much it pays, that would give him more pleasure than serving as administrator of NASA," said Ed Heffernan, associate administrator for legislative affairs and Goldin's chief of staff. "We have been out actively scheduling events and his calendar is pretty full. There are a lot of exciting things he's looking forward to."
One of those is seeing NASA's Expedition One crew -- astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko -- launch to the International Space Station in late October to become the station's first full-time occupants.
It's logical for Goldin to remain in the job at least until a new president is sworn in, said Jim Muncy, head of PoliSpace, an Arlington, Virginia space consulting firm.
"It would be very hard for a new person to come in at this late date and be anything more than a caretaker for a few months," he said. "Given where we are now, it makes sense for Mr. Goldin to stay on until the end of the administration and do what he can to sail the ship of state until a fresh person can take over."
As for Goldin's long tenure, there are pluses and minuses, Muncy said.
"The upside is everyone knows him and knows what he's all about and you either have a good relationship with him or you don't," Muncy said. "The downside is he can get set in his ways and that status quo can get entrenched and you don't have that catharsis of change."
"It was clearly good for NASA to have Jim Webb in charge for seven years when the entire agency was focused on achieving the challenge of
Apollo. Unless you have that kind of focus, very often being in a job for so long tends to be limiting to a person as well as an agency," he said.
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