CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Andrew J. Stofan, the outspoken chief of NASA's space station program, said Sunday he is retiring from the agency after 30 years of service to pursue a career in private industry.
Stofan, who is widely respected within NASA, was named associate administrator for space station in June 1986 and he is credited with breathing new life into the program by implementing major management and technical improvements. His retirement, effective April 1, will be announced Monday in Washington.
'It's a tough decision,' he said in a telephone interview from his home near Washington. 'It was an unbelieveable job. It's really been an interesting year and a half. The next guy who takes over is not walking into a world that's perfect ... but we've got lot of things settled.'
Some NASA insiders said they thought Stofan was forced out of his position but the station boss said that was not the case.
'There have been no external pressures,' he said.
Stofan said he initially told NASA Administrator James Fletcher that he would take on the job to 'get the space station going again, put it on firm ground.' Last December, Stofan said, he told Fletcher that he had accomplished his goal and that it was time to move on.
'I said, hey look, I think I've done what I promised to do and I'd like to go,' Stofan said. 'He wanted me to stay for the rest of his administration.'
Stofan said he is negotiating with 'four or five companies but 'as of right now, I don't have another job.'
NASA hopes to have the space station, a permanently manned orbital research facility, ready for use in the mid to late 1990s but budget cuts have disrupted the timetable.
The station originally was billed as an $8 billion program when President Reagan endorsed the project in his 1984 State of the Union address. Since then, more realistic figures have emerged and the station now is expected to cost more than $14 billion for hardware alone.
When administrative and shuttle transportation costs are figured in, the final price tag could exceed $23 billion.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration requested $767 million in fiscal 1988 to get the project rolling and planned to request $1.8 billion in 1989 and $1.9 billion in 1990. But House-Senate negotiators approved just $425 million for fiscal 1988.
Stofan has been a vigorous and outspoken supporter of the station and in an interview at the Kennedy Space Center in December, before the 1988 budget battle had been resolved, he said presidential support was vital for its survival.
'It goes right to the basic problem we have today, and that's leadership,' he said. 'It's a lack of or not enough leadership in the White House, in the Office of Management and Budget, in Congress and in NASA.
'And I think to have NASA do what it ought to do takes leadership in all those arenas. Remember, the space station is President Reagan's initiative and a reaffirmation of that is needed if we are going to get through this process and get enough money to start this program.'
Reagan did, in fact, provide a statement of support in the written version of his State of the Union message to Congress last month.
'I am asking the Congress to maintain our strong national commitment to a permanently manned space station,' the president said. 'The fiscal year 1989 budget request includes $1 billion to achieve this goal, along with a request for a three-year appropriations commitment from the Congress totaling $6.1 billion.'
Stofan joined NASA in 1958 as an engineer at the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland and quickly rose through the ranks to manage a variety of propulsion projects.
In 1978, Stofan was named deputy associate administrator for space science at NASA headquarters in Washington but he returned to Cleveland in 1982 to become director of the Lewis Research Center, a position he held until he was named associate administrator for space station in June 1986.
