I decided that I would plan to retire from the JPL position JPL director on
june thirtieth you know this coming year things are going extremely well my goal
is to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible cause I think that's
very important for continuing progress of the lab now I hope you notice I said
the retiring from my position as a JPL director my plan is to go back to the
campus and being a professor emeritus that will allow me so I won't be doing
teaching but will allow me to continue doing research on the Cassini radar
the the Europa sounder that I make CO-I on it
in addition I mean you know me I tend to be very proactive and I intend to
continue to be very proactive in advocating and supporting NASA and the
NASA program and the space exploration program of our country in the meantime
we still have eight months you know to go together there is a lot of things
you saw a lot of exciting things to happen but I want to take this
opportunity to tell you thank you what a privilege and an honor it has been to be your
director and to be your colleagues and you guys do amazing things and we are
all fortunate I really mean it we are all fortunate at least I can say to
myself for being part of JPL, Caltech and NASA. I don't think there is any place in
the world which can match the kind of things you know we do here and we do at NASA.
What a fantastic demonstration of what our nation and our agency can do.
I could only think of the words of Teddy Roosevelt as i was sitting there.
"it is far better to dare mighty things even though we might fail, then to stay in the twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
and the team brought us victory.
[President Obama] I just wanted to call and say congratulations to the entire Mars Science Laboratory team and really all of JPL.
You guys should be remarkably proud.
And this is the kind of thing that inspires kids across the country.
Thank you very much