President Barack Obama on Tuesday met veteran shuttle astronaut Charles Bolden whom the White House hopes will agree to become NASA's first African-American chief.
The President and Bolden met in the Roosevelt Room of the White House and chatted about their support for space exploration and ways to make NASA a stronger agency in future, an Obama administration official said.
But the official added that no announcement on Bolden's future was imminent.
Earlier, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs voiced hopes that Major-general Bolden, a retired Marine pilot who saw service in Vietnam, and who flew on the first of four space flights in 1986 as a pilot on board the shuttle Columbia, would agree to take the top NASA job.
He said Obama had looked forward to meeting Bolden "and hopes that he's the right person to lead NASA in the coming years and through its evolving role."
The 62-year-old aviation consultant has widely been reported as Obama's pick to become administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a post that has remained vacant since the president took office in January.
Bolden joined NASA's astronaut program in 1980 and also held several technical and administrative posts at the civilian space agency.
He would take over at a challenging time for NASA, after Obama's new budget ordered a review of a problem-plagued rocket that the agency hopes will replace its aging shuttle fleet to extend the future of manned US space flight.
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