Politician who said politicians shouldn’t run NASA wants to run NASA

Enlarge / Then Rep. Bill Nelson (D-Fla., Bottom) during weightlessness training aboard a KC-135 with other astronaut trainees in 1985. To his right is teacher Christa McAuliffe, died with seven other crew members in the Challenger disaster.

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On Monday, a rumor that simmered in Washington for several weeks surfaced: Former US Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, is one of the main contenders to become NASA’s next administrator.

The Breaking Defense publication publicly shared the rumor on Twitter, noting that Nelson has a “strong” relationship with President Biden and understands how Congress works. Nelson, 78, lost his candidacy for re-election to the Senate for 2018. He had served six terms as a member of the House of Representatives and three terms in the upper house.

Two sources told Ars that Nelson was doing everything possible to become a director and was leveraging his friendly relationship with Biden to do so. “It’s more than a rumor,” said a source. However, it is also not a done deal, as after the rumor broke there was a denial in the space community about Nelson’s appointment to the post, which has a long and sometimes controversial history in the space community.

Simon Porter, a New Horizons astrophysicist who speaks openly on Twitter, perhaps best summed up some of that angst. in writingThis is literally ‘Trump putting the oil executives in charge of the EPA’s levels of bad and corruption. This has to be pushed by lobbyists for SLS contractors, and if Biden even thinks about it, he listens to them. lobbyists, not professionals. “

Nelson the astronaut

Nelson would certainly bring a lot of experience and familiarity with the role of NASA administrator. In addition to representing the Kennedy Space Center to Congress for decades, he flew as a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia in January 1986.

However, much of the space industry has seen Nelson’s mission as an influential politician plodding his way onto the Space Shuttle for self-aggrandizement. In his book Riding RocketsFormer NASA astronaut Mike Mullane vividly recounts the antics of Nelson, who Mullane said sought out any attempt to gain favorable publicity.

“He wanted to be a crew member and do something really important,” Mullane wrote. “There was just one problem. None of the principal investigators in any of the experiments exhibited during the mission wanted Nelson to be near their equipment. They had a chance to steal their experiments, had worked with the astronauts for months of how best to get the equipment to work, and I had no desire for a non-technical politician to step in at the last moment and ruin everything. “

Eventually, Nelson earned a contemptuous nickname from his teammates for the role he ultimately played in the shuttle mission.Ballast.

Space launch system

More recently, Nelson played a key role in NASA’s development of the expensive Space Launch System rocket. Early in his presidency, Barack Obama sought to reverse NASA’s efforts to build a large rocket, the Ares V, and to see if the private sector could build launchers more efficiently. This would free up NASA’s budget for technology development and other purposes, as companies like SpaceX began to show promise.

Nelson joined with key Republicans in opposing the plan and garnering votes against. As a result, NASA was commissioned to build another large rocket, the Space Launch System, to replace the Ares V. (Over a decade and $ 20 billion later, the SLS rocket has yet to been launched). Nelson has also spearheaded the charge to cut funding for commercial crews, NASA’s initiative to have companies like SpaceX and Boeing deliver astronauts to the International Space Station after retirement. the Space Shuttle.

Working with Sen. Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, Nelson saw that the Commercial Crew Program received less than half of the money the White House wanted for the Commercial Crew from 2011 to 2014. Au instead, Congress invested that money in the SLS rocket.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Nelson continued to lambast NASA for its support for commercial companies, especially SpaceX. After SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced the development of the Falcon Heavy rocket – a low-cost competitor to SLS – Nelson made buttons to NASA officials for their support of the company. Keep “your boy” online, he told them, according to two sources.

Not a politician

In 2017, Nelson also led the opposition to Jim Bridenstine becoming a NASA administrator. While a senior member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which oversees NASA, Nelson said Bridenstine was too partisan and political to lead NASA. He also accused Bridenstine of not having the expertise to do so.

“The head of NASA should be a space professional, not a politician,” Nelson said of Bridenstine, then a two-term congressman from Oklahoma.

Bridenstine would go on to become a respected administrator of the space agency, rarely showing anything other than bipartisanship as he advanced the space agency’s efforts in human exploration and scientific research.

Among scientists, there are now fears that Nelson may share Bridenstine’s enthusiasm for advancing the agency as a whole or for scientific exploration. Indeed, as a congressman from Florida, Nelson generally only sought funding for the Kennedy Space Center and programs such as the SLS rocket, which used space shuttle-era technology and supported local jobs. .

Asked about her thoughts on Nelson as a potential NASA administrator, Lori Garver, who served as the space agency’s deputy under the Obama administration, was not overly excited. “Now is not the time to go back to NASA,” she said.