Daniel Goldin

For the American journalist, see Daniel Golden.

Daniel Goldin
9th Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
In office April 1, 1992 – November 17, 2001
President	George H.W. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Bush
Preceded by	Richard H. Truly
Succeeded by	Sean O'Keefe
Personal details
Born	Daniel Saul Goldin (1940-07-23) July 23, 1940 New York City
Nationality	American
Spouse	Judy Goldin (m. 1962)
Children	2
Alma mater	City College of New York, B.S. 1962
Occupation	Founder of Cold Canyon AI
Known for	Longest-tenured Administrator of NASA

Daniel Saul Goldin (born July 23, 1940) served as the 9th and longest-tenured Administrator of NASA from April 1, 1992, to November 17, 2001. He was appointed by President George H. W. Bush and also served under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He is an entrepreneur and technologist. Most recently he is the founder of Cold Canyon AI, an innovation advisory company. His career has spanned numerous technologies and businesses in space science, aeronautics, national security, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence.

Early Life

Born in New York City, Goldin earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the City College of New York in 1962.

Career

He began his career at NASA's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio that year, and worked on electric propulsion systems for human interplanetary travel. Goldin left NASA a few years later to work at the TRW Space and Technology Group in Redondo Beach, California.

TRW

During a 25-year career at TRW - now Northrop Grumman -, Goldin eventually became Vice President and General Manager where he oversaw a broad range of advanced space and technology developments focused on America’s national security, scientific exploration of our solar system, space telescopes to observe our high energy universe, and development of advanced technologies for the global marketplace. He conceptualized and produced advanced communication spacecraft, space technologies, and scientific instruments.

NASA Administrator

During his tenure, the Agency's civil service workforce was reduced by about a third, while the Headquarters' civil service and contractor workforce was reduced by more than half. These reductions were accomplished without resorting to forced layoffs. At the same time, NASA's productivity gains climbed 40 per cent.

Goldin also cut the time required to develop Earth- and space science spacecraft by 40 per cent and reduced the cost by two-thirds, while increasing the average number of missions launched per year about four times. During the same time, Space Shuttle costs were reduced by about a third, while all safety indicators and mission capabilities have achieved significant improvements.

The New York Times reported that space analysts attribute the new era of revitalization at NASA "to the influence of Dan Goldin . . . (who) in 1992 started a vigorous campaign to make the agency's products smaller, cheaper, faster, and better. He is still pushing that agenda hard." This approach has been applied successfully to NASA's Earth climate observation missions. Under his leadership, the Earth Science program has been refocused to fly more spacecraft and collect more measurements for less than half the cost of what had been planned in 1992.

Defense Business, which named Goldin among the world's top 40 most influential defence-industry leaders, said he "has tightened the workforce, introduced a stunning array of new missions, including information-gathering journeys to the Moon and Mars, and become the major player in the embryonic International Space Station." In naming him one of the 100 most influential men and women in government, the National Journal observed that "most space watchers say that Goldin is a brilliant visionary who brought NASA back from the brink of a black hole."

Nowhere has Goldin's vision been more evident than in his comprehensive strategy for space exploration. He initiated the Origins Program to understand how the Universe has evolved, to learn how life began on Earth and to see if life exists elsewhere. He led a rescue plan for the successful installation of a "contact lens" on the Hubble Space Telescope, leading to startling discoveries of the cosmos. Goldin challenged Origins planners to search for Earth-like planets within 100 light-years of our planet. He also laid the foundation to complete the first scientific census of the solar system and to send the first probe into interstellar space.

Goldin has been a vigorous proponent for increased exploration of Mars and has established a series of robotic missions that will visit the planet every two years for the next decade. These missions are being developed in one-third the time and at one-tenth the cost of previous Mars expeditions. Featuring new technologies such as planetary rovers, penetrators and sample returns, these missions are designed to determine if life and water may have existed on Mars. These expeditions will be instrumental in the development of human missions to Mars that Goldin believes could occur early in the next century.

To expand opportunities for public and educational participation in the adventure of space exploration and research, Goldin directed NASA's program managers to incorporate Internet access into mission outreach plans. This new policy attracted over three-quarters of a billion "hits" for the Mars Pathfinder mission, while CNN reported an unprecedented half million hits per minute during its Webcast of STS-95, the mission which included John Glenn's return to flight. In 1998, Yahoo Internet Life magazine selected the NASA site as one of the 12 best on the World Wide Web, and for two consecutive years has named it the "Best Astronomy Internet Site."

Goldin played a pivotal role in redesigning the International Space Station. Starting with the Space Shuttle program, he has established a goal to transfer day-to-day space operations to the private sector. This will enable the Agency to dedicate its resources to long-term, high-risk research and development and help establish a permanent human presence beyond low Earth orbit. To ensure a robust future for the aerospace industry and to build new commercial opportunities in space tourism, he challenged NASA's Aero-Space Technology program to make space travel 10,000 times safer and 100 times cheaper.

Worm Logo

On Friday 22 May 1992, Goldin announced that the "worm" logo would be replaced by the traditional NASA blue "meatball" logo. It had been replaced in 1975 by the NASA red "worm" logo. By 1997, Goldin had started a largely successful campaign within NASA to eradicate the "worm".[2] By 1998 the "worm" logo had entirely disappeared from use both in uniforms and in equipment.

Resignation

On November 17, 2001, President George W. Bush accepted Goldin's resignation as NASA administrator. He was succeeded by Daniel S. Mulville (acting 19 November - 21 December 2001) then by Sean O'Keefe (21 December 2001 - 11 February 2005).[3]

Honors

Goldin was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1998 for pioneering development of advanced space communications and electronics and for leadership in managing the U.S. space program.

In 2015, Goldin has selected as a Visionary by the Genius 100 Foundation in commemoration of the centennial of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. In 2017, the Foundation unveiled for the first time, a 3D publishing milestone by Israeli-British artist Ron Arad titled Genius: 100 Visions of the Future. The book features all 100 visions from the 100 Visionaries.

Asteroid 16529 Dangoldin is named in his honor.

Goldin is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering and International Academy of Astronautics. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Competitiveness, a Fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society.

Quotes

• "My eyeball kept getting distorted more and more, so I became more and more nearsighted. At that time, if you had a detached retina due to the buildup of pressure on the eye you could go blind. In the Bronx, you played stickball and baseball and basketball in the schoolyard. I wasn't allowed to do that and I became different than my friends. I was self-conscious. I wanted to be like them but I was forced by health reasons to be different."
• "The only thing I wanted to work on in my life was space. I would do it anyway I could."
• "Never try and eat a baseball, it's never any good."
• "Go with imagination, ingenuity, and audacity. Explore, discover, change the world, and have fun while you're doing it."
• "Pure success results from mediocre goals."

External links

• NASA biography of Daniel Saul Goldin
• Goldin Stands by 'Faster, Better, Cheaper' Credo - by Alex Canizares at the Wayback Machine (archived July 23, 2008)
• Appearances on C-SPAN

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.