Washington – Bill Nelson says he never imagined he would become the administrator of NASA, the nation’s space agency.
“I had absolutely no idea about any of this. In fact, I grew up in the shadow of the Cape and I never thought I would ever get a chance to fly in space,” Nelson said.
Nelson served in both the House and Senate as a Democrat representing Florida. In 1986, Nelson trained and flew with the crew of the space shuttle Columbia, becoming the second sitting member of Congress to travel to space, after Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah.
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“I flew in the space shuttle. We did 135 flights, two of which were disastrous. The first, Challenger, was 10 days after our flight we landed back on Earth,” Nelson said. “It’s a harsh environment. And you see, when the kid goes up and when he comes back, it’s a very, very difficult time.”
The space shuttle completed its last mission in 2011. Since then, NASA has started working with a space shuttle. Increase in the number of private companies to travel into space and conduct research. He says the partnership has helped unite Americans.
“Just think of how space history brought us together. Think of when the Soviets beat us, and we were scared because they had the high ground. They had Sputnik, and then they put Yuri Gagarin first in orbit,” Nelson said. “But (a few) months later, John Glenn got into that Mercury capsule. He got into it, and it was sitting on top of an Atlas rocket. There was a 20% chance that thing would explode. And when Glenn succeeded in three orbits, everything changed.”
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaks during a media briefing at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC on September 14, 2023. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Nelson said space is part of the American spirit and making the impossible possible is his priority.
President John F. Kennedy said during a speech at Rice University in 1962, “We have chosen to go to the Moon and do the other tasks in this decade, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Kennedy’s speech has inspired people for decades. Research at NASAWhen the agency was founded in 1958, Congress legislated that any technology designed for space must also be practical for Earth.
“Since 1958, we’ve been delivering these technologies to the public in the form of new products and services that make our lives better,” said Daniel Lockney, NASA technology transfer program executive. “(The technologies) grow the U.S. economy, save lives and in other respects are really great things that we get as a result of the nation’s investment in this aerospace research.”
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Lockney has worked to transfer NASA inventions or intellectual property to the public domain.
“We get credit for things we didn’t do, which is a wonderful problem,” Lockney said. “One of the things we did that we don’t get credit for is, we invented the camera on your cellphone.”
In the 1980s, spacecraft imaging helped launch the digital camera industry by using charged devices to create images in space. For the next decade, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California worked on creating image sensors that used less power and were easier to mass produce. The result was a smaller digital computer chip.
“We didn’t know what to do with it,” Lockney said. “Then, Nokia approached us, and they had this crazy idea of putting a camera in a telephone.”
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will launch from Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 5, 2024. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson says public-private partnerships in space are helping to unite Americans. (Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The lightweight, high-resolution camera microchip did not require a lot of power and could Perfect for space flight and handheld personal devices.
“Now we all have the privilege of taking a photo with our cameras, and it’s a very beautiful photo,” Nelson said.
Bobby Brown, director for planetary science at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), discusses Mars sample return flight systems at JPL on October 14, 2021 in Pasadena, California. (Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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New technology is being developed on Earth to advance space flight, but an increasing amount of research and innovation is happening in space. Astronauts are conducting experiments 24/7 on the International Space Station, Nelson says. Private companies are also sending astronauts into space to conduct experiments.
“The additional astronauts that are coming are bringing their own research, many of them sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. Whenever they want to send it up for longer periods of time, our astronauts are there full-time,” he said.
