Retired two-star mentioned as next NASA head

[unhappycamper]

Retired two-star mentioned as next NASA head
Staff report
Posted : Wednesday Jan 7, 2009 12:02:08 EST

A retired two-star general whose résumé includes four flights into space is among President-elect Barrack Obama’s top choices to lead NASA, according to media reports.

If tapped for the post, 62-year-old Charles Bolden Jr., who retired from the Corps in 2003, would be the agency’s first black administrator.

The reports caught even Bolden by surprise. He told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday that he is “as surprised as anyone” to hear that his name has been floated alongside Sally Ride, the first female U.S. astronaut, and Scott Hubbard, former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center.

A member of the expert panel that advises NASA’s current administrator, Michael Griffin, Bolden spent 14 years with the space agency. He was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1980 and flew his first space mission six years later aboard the shuttle Columbia. Bolden served as mission commander aboard Atlantis in 1992 and again aboard Discovery in 1994.

His career in the Corps is no less storied.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/01/marine_bolden_nasa_010709w/%2e