If confirmed by the Senate, he will be NASA’s 14th administrator, succeeding another former legislator, Republican Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma.
President Joe Biden selected Bill Nelson, a former senator who flew the space shuttle days before the Challenger tragedy, to lead NASA.
The announcement was made on Friday. Nelson, 78, was a Democratic legislator for Florida when he flew the shuttle Columbia in January 1986. His commander was Charles Bolden Jr., who was the head of NASA during the Barack Obama presidency at Nelson’s urging. . He was a senator in the United States from 2000 until his defeat in 2018.
If confirmed by the Senate, he will be NASA’s 14th administrator, succeeding another former legislator, Republican Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma.
This is a critical time for NASA as the private sector space program accelerates.
SpaceX is about to launch its third flight with astronauts to the International Space Station on behalf of NASA and Boeing plans to join this activity in the coming months. Provisioning of the space station has been carried out by private companies under contract with NASA for almost a decade.
At the same time, NASA is partnering with private companies to launch experiments and equipment to the moon and probes for the moon landing of astronauts. On Thursday, it successfully conducted a test with its SLS rocket, the Lunar Launch System.
The new program is named after the goddess Artemis, Apollo’s twin sister, and her intention is to send a woman to the moon.
Nelson’s nomination was endorsed by Republican Senator Marco Rubio.
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