US president Joe Biden has nominated former senator Bill Nelson as the next administrator of NASA. Nelson, a Florida Democrat who left the Senate in 2019, flew on the space shuttle Columbia in 1986 and has long been an advocate for the space agency. Nelson, who trained as an attorney, served in state and national politics starting in the 1970s. In the Senate, he championed ambitious NASA programs even as others were pushing the agency to use private companies like SpaceX to launch astronauts. Nelson criticized President Barack Obama when Obama, citing budget overruns, cancelled the Constellation program—which would have developed new rockets with a goal of putting humans back on the moon by 2020. In 2010, Nelson helped write a bill requiring NASA to continue work on those rockets. Now called the Space Launch System, their ongoing development has cost one-third more than projected. Nelson has not opposed private

    The attorney has been a friend of the space agency

    10.1021/cen-09911-polcon2-nelson-gr1

    Bill Nelson (Credit: Ron Sachs/CNP/Polaris/Newscom)

    policybill nelsonnasaPhotograph of Bill Nelson testifying before a US Senate committee.


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    Title :

    Bill Nelson picked to lead NASA


    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2021-03-29




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    Unknown