Administrator Goldin's Initiatives

• 25-year Strategic Plan -- describes how NASA will implement its missions, answer fundamental questions and achieve future goals.

• Agency Safety Initiative

• Astrobiology -- the scientific study of the origin, distribution, and future of life in the universe.

• Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) -- A unique aeronautical mission that will lead lead to a new family of remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs). The RPVs will collect, identify and monitor environmental data or carry telecommunications equipment at a fraction of the cost of putting a traditional satellite in space.

• Day-to-Day Operations Transition to Private Sector - previously operations programs managed by NASA, such as the Space Shuttle, mission control and communications satellites are being transitioned to the private sector.

• Discovery Program -- a series of smaller, focused planetary missions with fast turn-around times and low mission cost.

• Hubble Space Telescope Repair Mission -- the space-based telescope is making revolutionary astronomical discoveries following its dramatic repair.

• Intelligent Synthesis Environment -- Conceives a fundamental change of the engineering culture using real-time simulation to allow total immersion and geographically distributed virtual presence and cut turn-around times for industry.

• Mars Exploration- a series of orbiters and landers, including the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor, that will help us better understand the Red Planet.

• New Millennium Program -- an ambitious plan to launch frequent, affordable missions with spacecraft boasting revolutionary new capabilities and technologies, such as the recently launched Deep Space 1.

• Origins Program -- a series of space and ground-based observatories dedicated to research and analyze the origin of life in the universe.

• Reusable Launch Vehicle Program -- a NASA and industry partnership to design a new generation of launch vehicles expected to dramatically lower the costs and increase the reliability of access to space.

• Revitalized Earth Observing System -- A series of earth observing satellites conducting long-term global observations of the Earth's land surface, atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere.

• Shuttle-Mir -- the joint American and Russian mission helped NASA astronauts learn how to make long term space flight safer, conducted a hundred science experiments during seven tours aboard Mir by U.S. astronauts, and in 3 years provided more time in space than the entire 17 years of shuttle flights combined.

• National Space Biomedical Research Institute

• National Center for Microgravity Research

• National Institute for Advanced Concepts

• NASA ISO 9001 Certification -- Administrator Daniel S. Goldin challenged NASA in November 1996 to have all the agency's facilities certified by September 1999. "We are leaders in the world of science and technology. We must also be leaders in the world of quality. I am requiring that the Agency be third-party certified in our key processes, by an internationally recognized registrar, to ISO 9001. This commitment applies to all centers and headquarters," said Goldin.

  As of Sept. 17, 1999, all NASA centers, NASA Headquarters, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and all of NASA's government operated facilities have achieved ISO 9001 registration or been recommended for registration.

  With this accomplishment, NASA became the world's first federal or state agency with multiple sites to have all its sites under ISO 9001 registration. NASA Headquarters is among the first corporate headquarters offices in the world to achieve its ISO 9001 registration.

  The ISO 9001 standard is an internationally accepted set of topics comprising the basic items needed to define and implement a "Quality Management System" for an organization. An impartial auditor evaluates the effectiveness and completeness of the quality management system before recommending registration.