Biden expected to tap Nelson to lead NASA
WASHINGTON
The Biden administration is expected to nominate former senator Bill Nelson to be the next administrator of NASA, according to multiple people with knowledge of the matter.
If approved by the Senate, Nelson, 78, would be the second consecutive NASA chief to come from Congress and would give NASA a leader with close ties to the Oval Office. Nelson was a key Biden supporter during the campaign and has a long personal relationship with the president.
The announcement could come as early as Friday, according to the people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the official announcement.
Nelson flew to space on the space shuttle in 1986 and oversaw NASA’s space programs while in Congress. He is knowledgeable and enthusiastic about space and NASA, an agency he has long cherished. But the choice is disappointing to many who were hopeful the next NASA administrator would be the first woman to serve in the top position.
Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, has long been an advocate for space — a rarity among members of Congress. NASA and its contractors have long been an important source of jobs in Florida, where the Kennedy Space Center is located.
While in the Senate, Nelson was a staunch supporter of NASA’s Space Launch System, the troubled heavy-lift rocket that Congress mandated after the Obama administration canceled a previous rocket and spacecraft program, called Constellation, that was way over budget and behind schedule. Like its predecessor, the SLS rocket is years behind schedule and overbudget and has yet to fly.
That stance has made proponents of the commercialization of space wary at a time when NASA has embraced the expanding capabilities of the private sector. NASA relies on SpaceX, for example, to fly its astronauts to and from the International Space Station under NASA’s “commercial crew” program and is looking to the private sector to help in its quest to return to the moon.
While Nelson is a wellknown champion for NASA, many were hoping for a new generation of leadership to carry the agency into a new era. “It’s time for a female administrator,” Wayne Hale, a former NASA space shuttle program manager who was the flight director for 40 missions, wrote on Twitter. “Plenty of qualified candidates.”
In 1986, as NASA was gearing up to fly civilians on the space shuttle — first a teacher, then a journalist — Nelson, then a member of the House, was able to fly first, joining the crew of NASA astronauts.