spacetoday.net: NASA science chief steps down

Posted: Thu, Mar 27, 2008, 6:23 PM ET (2223 GMT)
NASA

The associate administrator of NASA responsible for the agency's science programs resigned Wednesday. Alan Stern, who took over as head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate last April, announced Wednesday morning that he was resigning, and would leave the agency in the next few weeks. Neither Stern nor other NASA officials gave an official reason for his resignation. Some have speculated that the the move may have come after NASA administrator Mike Griffin overruled a plan to cut several million dollars from the Mars Exploration Rover program, which mission backers feared would have forced them to put one of the rovers in hibernation. Stern will be replaced on at least an interim basis by Ed Weiler, the director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who previously served as head of associate administrator for space science from 1998 to 2004.