NASA nominee gets warm welcome from his former colleagues in Senate
Bill Nelson was in friendly territory during his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, with former colleagues heaping praise and softball questions on the nominee to lead NASA.
The former Democratic senator was exalted for being passionate about space and for being willing to reach across the aisle. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, even gave him the nod of approval.
“There are not many (President Joe) Biden nominees about whom I am enthusiastic, and your nomination is a notable exception to that,” Cruz said. “I’m enthusiastic because you and I have worked together
for a lot of years, and I know that you genuinely care about the mission of NASA.”
The hearing stands in stark contrast from the hearing in 2017 when U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine sat before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation prior to becoming NASA administrator. Senators, including Nelson, criticized him for being a politician and for lacking space experience.
Ultimately, Bridenstine’s familiarity with Congress proved useful for advocating on behalf of NASA. And on Wednesday, not a single senator asked Nelson about his previous comments or hesitancy regarding a politician leading NASA.
Instead, they praised his political chops and said it would help the agency as its Artemis program seeks to return astronauts to the moon.
“As NASA embarks on its Artemis program, the agency needs a leader who not only has a longstanding understanding of NASA’s goals and missions but someone with political leadership skills who can build consensus and chart a bold path forward for NASA and our country,” said former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who worked with Nelson on NASA issues while they were both in the Senate.
Nelson, 78, was on the verge of tears when reminiscing about his time in the Senate. His long political career included serving as a ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. He was also chairman of the Space and Science Subcommittee and even a crew member on the space shuttle Columbia in 1986.
Interest in space
Nelson’s Senate confirmation hearing comes three months after Biden was sworn into office. And while space is not typically a top priority for incoming presidents, Biden has shown an interest in NASA.
The president is displaying a moon rock in the Oval Office. He called employees with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to congratulate them after the Perseverance rover landed on Mars, and he’s requesting a 6.3 percent increase in funding that would boost NASA’s budget to $24.7 billion.
He also appears to be continuing key programs that were started or revived by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“The Biden administration can disagree with lots of things that the Trump administration did and still point to space and say, ‘Except in this area, there was a lot of good stuff,’ ” said Jared Zambrano-Stout, a space policy expert with the law firm Meeks Butera & Israel.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said Biden supports NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon. He wants the Space Force to remain an independent branch of the military, and he’s continuing the National Space Council to coordinate federal space policies and activities.
When asked by a reporter if “space and space policy is one of the few areas where President Biden actually agrees with his predecessor,” Psaki said, “that sounds accurate to me.”
It’s welcome news for a community accustomed to new presidents changing policies and canceling human spaceflight programs, including a previous moon shot.
“We are finally able to complete something we started,” said Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. “This is about what’s best for America. And Biden sees that the policies implemented during the previous administration was the right set of goals and initiatives.”
Zambrano-Stout noted that many of the policies created during the Trump administration had wide support and, in some cases, were the result of many years of consensus building.
Nelson likewise voiced his commitment to continuity on Wednesday and said his vision for NASA was “to continue for us to explore the heavens with humans and with machines.”
He thanked Bridenstine, saying he “did a remarkable job under difficult circumstances.” And he said NASA continues working toward the 2024 goal of landing people on the moon. This is a goal many in the space community believe is unrealistic, and Nelson acknowledged that it’s an ambitious timetable and that space is hard.
Reaching the moon
Biden’s fiscal year 2022 budget request includes $6.9 billion for Artemis, and there are many reasons why Biden might wish to continue this program.
For starters, it’s a sign of American strength. It’s also a diplomacy tool that encourages international cooperation, said Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
And with Russia and China potentially partnering on lunar exploration, America wants to create a sustainable lunar presence to maintain space leadership and its reputation as a desirable nation to partner with in microgravity.
“If we don’t go to the moon and the only way a smaller space power could get to the moon is by partnering with Russia and China, then they might do it,” Harrison said. “And that’s going to bring them closer to our competitors.”
To lower Americans to the moon, NASA is partnering with commercial companies to develop human landing systems. On Friday, it announced that the SpaceX Starship being developed and tested in South Texas would be used on Artemis’ first crewed mission. Other companies could develop systems for later missions.
On Wednesday, Sen. Maria Cantwell, chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, expressed concern that just one company was chosen to move forward with this initial human landing system. With other NASA programs, such as the Commercial Crew program that’s carrying astronauts to the International Space Station, NASA selected two commercial companies in case one had an issue.
“I want to know that you’ll commit to rapidly providing Congress with a plan for assuring that kind of resiliency out of the human lander program,” Cantwell said.
Nelson committed to doing this and said competition is important.
“I know that you genuinely care about the mission of NASA.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz to Bill Nelson, the nominee to lead the space agency
The specifics
Biden has only scratched the surface of space policy, and the space community is waiting to see where the president stands on more nitty-gritty policy details.
But thus far, it appears there won’t be any sweeping changes that could derail space progress or cost jobs — and jobs were something multiple senators emphasized on Wednesday.
“It is explicitly acknowledged now that space policy is one area where what Trump was doing is largely going to continue under the Biden administration,” Harrison said, “and it seems to have a lot of bipartisan support.”