The first administrator of NASA was Dr.
T. Keith Glennan; during his term he brought together the disparate projects in space development research in the US. Glennan presided over an organization that had absorbed the earlier
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) intact; its 8,000 employees, an annual budget of $100 million, and three major research laboratories—
Langley Aeronautical Laboratory,
Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, and
Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory—and two small test facilities made up the core of the new NASA. Within a short time after NASA's formal organization, Glennan incorporated several organizations involved in space exploration projects from other federal agencies into NASA. He brought in part of the Naval Research Laboratory and created the
Goddard Space Flight Center. He also incorporated several disparate satellite programs, two lunar probes, and the research effort to develop a million pound force (4.4 MN) thrust, single-chamber rocket engine from the
U.S. Air Force and the
U.S. Department of Defense's (DOD)
Advanced Research Projects Agency. In December 1958 Glennan also acquired control of the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a contractor facility operated by the
California Institute of Technology. In 1960, Glennan obtained the transfer to NASA of the
Army Ballistic Missile Agency, located at
Huntsville, Alabama, and renamed it the
Marshall Space Flight Center. The second administrator,
James E. Webb, served from 1961 to 1968, from the beginning of the
Kennedy administration through the end of the
Johnson administration, thus overseeing each of the critical first crewed missions throughout the
Mercury and
Gemini programs until days before the launch of the first Apollo mission. He also dealt with the
Apollo 1 fire. During Webb's administration, NASA developed from a loose collection of research centers to a coordinated organization. He had a key role in creating the Manned Spacecraft Center, later the
Johnson Space Center, in
Houston. Despite the pressures to focus on the Apollo program, Webb ensured that NASA carried out a program of planetary exploration with the
Mariner and
Pioneer space programs. Webb was an early champion of space telescopes, like the
one that would later bear his name. Encouraged by Kennedy and Johnson, Webb made racial integration a priority for the agency. NASA publicly supported the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and initiated a series of innovative programs aimed at increasing black participation including specifically targeting black colleges and schools with recruitment programs. The only person to hold the post twice is
James C. Fletcher. During his first administration at NASA, Fletcher was responsible for beginning the
Space Shuttle effort, as well as the
Viking program that sent landers to
Mars. He oversaw the
Skylab missions and approved the
Voyager space probes and the
Apollo–Soyuz Test Project. He returned to NASA following the
Challenger disaster.
Daniel Goldin held the post for the longest term (nearly 10 years), and is best known for pioneering the
"faster, better, cheaper" approach to space programs. The current administrator is entrepreneur and philanthropist
Jared Isaacman, who was nominated by President
Donald Trump on November 5, 2025. He replaced
Sean Duffy, who served as acting administrator from July 9, 2025 to December 17, 2025.
Jared Isaacman was nominated by Trump (while he was president-elect) on December 4, 2024, but his nomination was withdrawn on May 31, reportedly because of his connections to
Elon Musk and donations towards
Democratic, anti-Trump politicians. == List of administrators ==