NASA administrator Goldin stepping down

Daniel Goldin, telling NASA employees on Wednesday that he's resigning

(CNN) -- NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin is resigning.

"When I told my grandson that I would have more time for him, he squealed with joy," said Goldin in a telephone conversation with CNN space correspondent Miles O'Brien.

"After ten years in this job, I look forward to taking some time off."

Goldin, 61, became NASA chief in the spring of 1992 and was sworn in by former President Bush. He is the agency's longest serving administrator. He'll leave the agency on November 17.

"You are the greatest," Goldin told NASA employees on Wednesday. "It was easy being administrator. It's going to be very hard walking out that door.

"I'll always have NASA in my heart," he said.

Goldin was given a standing ovation by employees. He stayed after his speech to shake hands and to hug workers gathered in an auditorium at NASA headquarters in Washington. Employees at other NASA centers were able to watch the speech on NASA TV.

Goldin told CNN he will now take a position with the Council on Competitiveness, a Washington think-tank. He will spend three months there and then return to the private sector.

Goldin presided over a tumultuous time of deep budget cuts at NASA. According to his official biography on the NASA Web site, Goldin's "faster, better, cheaper" approach to spaceflight resulted in a $40 billion reduction in NASA's budget. Also, during his tenure, NASA's civilian workforce was cut by about one-third, according to the bio.

But his tenure also has been marked by big cost overruns for the international space station and the loss of two probes to Mars.

In September of 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter presumably burned up in the martian atmosphere because propulsion engineers failed to convert English and metric units.

Three months later, its sibling spacecraft, the Mars Polar Lander, likely crashed because a software glitch shut off the descent engines prematurely, sending it on a fatal plunge into the red planet.

Goldin's departure from the space agency had been rumored for about a year. It is unclear who his successor might be.

Goldin began his career at NASA's Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, in 1962, where he worked on electric propulsion systems for human interplanetary travel. Before being appointed as NASA chief, Goldin was Vice President and General Manager of the TRW Space and Technology Group in Redondo Beach, California.

Goldin and his wife Judy have two daughters, Ariel and Laura.

--CNN Space Correspondent Miles O'Brien contributed to this report