A former Congressman who had been considered as a leading candidate to succeed Dan Goldin as NASA administrator said Thursday he has no interest in the position.

Deflecting weeks of rumors that he was in the running for the post, and had even been offered it by the Bush Administration, Robert Walker told attendees of a commercial space conference at the Cato Institute in Washington that he had no desire to lead the space agency.

"I spent 30 years in government," Walker, who chaired the House Science Committee when he served in Congress as a Republican from Pennsylvania, said, "and I have no interest in going back full-time again."

Walker had been identified as a potential replacement for Goldin as early as last year, when he advised then-candidate Bush on science policy issues. Rumors in recent weeks claimed that Walker was not considered a front-runner for the job by the new administration, but that the President had offered the job to Walker, only to have him turn it down.

Walker, however, appeared to indicate that he had not received any such offer from President Bush. "I'm not certain that they have gotten to the point where they have made any offers," he said.

Instead of running NASA, Walker said he hopes to continue to informally advise Bush on science and space policy issues while continuing his private consulting work. "I hope I can be helpful to the administration in the space arena, just not full-time at NASA."

Goldin was appointed to the position of NASA administrator nearly nine years ago by President George Bush -- the father of the current president -- and was one of the few Clinton Administration executives retained by the new administration. Goldin was asked to stay on at NASA for at least the near term, rather than resign as is customary during the change in administrations, to maintain continuity in the agency while the new administration worked to find a successor.

Walker applauded that decision Thursday. "Dan Goldin is really being a patriot by staying on at the present time," he said. "NASA is flying a lot of highly intricate missions and he felt that it was important that whatever transition took place was from him directly to the new administrator, rather than have an interim [administrator] in the middle."

Not everyone at Thursday's conference was happy to see Goldin remain in office, however. "Dan Goldin must go!" chanted Rick Tumlinson, president of the Space Frontier Foundation, during a speech later in the day. Tumlinson accused Goldin of a litany of charges, ranging from the failure of the X-33 and X-34 to "throwing his friends and mentors at the Johnson Space Center to the dogs", a reference to last month's reassignment of JSC director George Abbey to a largely powerless role as a senior advisor to Goldin.

"The truth is sometimes not pleasant to hear," Tumlinson said, although his statements were met with applause and cheers by many members of the audience. "If we are not allowed to have a highly critical conversation about the current state of space policy, how can we hope to change it?"