Daniel S. Goldin

The Honorable Daniel S. Goldin is an entrepreneurial and scientific visionary, with the distinction of serving as NASA’s longest-tenured Administrator from April 1992-November 2001 reporting to three U.S. Presidents: George H.W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, and George W. Bush. As the founder of Cold Canyon, an innovation advisory company, and as a senior advisor to Cerberus Capital Management, his career spans space exploration and science, aeronautics, air traffic management, national security systems, semiconductors, advanced sensors, hypersonic, communications, and artificial intelligence. With his accumulated experience, Goldin is a highly sought-after leader in advancing American technologies and businesses.

Throughout his life, Goldin has relentlessly pursued his passion for astrophysics that was catalyzed at seven years old when his father, Louis Goldin, first took him to New York City’s Hayden Planetarium. Ever since, he developed an enthusiastic desire to help humanity understand the complex laws of nature and their own origins with a career dedicated to building America’s most technologically advanced astrophysical observatories of our time. Goldin actively contributed to and provided the leadership for the design, development, deployment and operations of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, Chandra X-Ray Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope rescue mission, Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope, and most recently the James Webb Space Telescope – an observatory where in the mid-90s he guided the American astrophysical community and his NASA team to assure the Webb would have the capacity to see back to the beginnings of creation and the capability to understand if life might exist elsewhere in the universe.

In addition to these legendary achievements, Goldin is credited with the re-emergence of NASA through one of its most challenging times after the Cold War, as he diplomatically fostered east-west international cooperation in space and oversaw the redesign, construction, and initial operation of the $120B International Space Station. For a decade he led the NASA team with his "Faster, Better, Cheaper" development philosophy and through the successful development, deployment, and operation of a whole new generation of smaller, significantly less expensive and faster to produce spacecraft to enable the extended exploration of our solar system, deeper observations of our known universe and more precise observations of the physical and biological dynamics of our own home planet with the objective of enhancing the quality of life on Planet Earth. In aerospace, Mr. Goldin’s "Faster, Better, Cheaper" philosophy enabled the NASA team to develop the X-43A Hypersonic Plane (Hyper-X Program) and earn the Guinness World Record for the fastest air-breathing aircraft at Mach 9.6 in 2004, a record which is still held today.