Daniel Saul Goldin 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.
When Goldin returned to NASA as administrator, he pioneered the "faster, better, cheaper" approach that proposed NASA could cut costs while still delivering a wide variety of aerospace programs. The approach ultimately proved controversial with the loss of several missions to Mars due to project management failures. During his administration, Goldin supervised projects such as the Mars Pathfinder, Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions, and the International Space Station. Goldin initially promoted a low-cost manned lunar project, but following the 1996 announcement that evidence had been found of biological activity in Martian meteorite ALH-84001, the focus was shifted to unmanned Mars probes. A criticism of Goldin's administration is that he was ego-centric and failed to provide a far-sighted focus for NASA other than inherited projects. In press conferences, he often referred to himself in the third person as “the Administrator”. He had his own private jet named “NASA1”. In mid-1999 he and senior Agency leadership created the Decadal Planning Team and its successors, which paved the way for NASA's contribution to the Vision for Space Exploration. Additional controversy related to Goldin is found in the 2008 documentary film, Orphans of Apollo. On Friday 22 May 1992, Goldin announced unexpectedly 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". He would become infuriated and vulgar whenever he would see a "worm" logo that was not replaced. By 1998 the "worm" logo had entirely disappeared from use both in uniforms and in equipment. On November 17, 2001, President George W. Bush accepted Goldin's resignation as NASA administrator. Goldin was replaced first by Daniel S. Mulville then by Sean O'Keefe.
"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 school yard. 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 any way 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."
