In the past, Bill Nelson was considered a “cracker” senator, and he provoked the Golden Age of space exploration
The charismatic leader urged students to study hard, participate in research, because the space industry is yet to grow
Why doesn’t Bulgaria have another astronaut?
Thus, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson answered “24 hours” what the country’s participation in the Artemis program could be. The goal of the international program with the main participant NASA is to return humanity to the moon, but also to make our satellite the springboard from which we will fly to Mars.
“I suggested to the president to have a Bulgarian astronaut, there are many opportunities with other nations to do this. I know that a Bulgarian cosmonaut flew with a Soviet one, I met him on the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin. I know that your second one also flew with a Russian an astronaut,” Nelson said.
He then revealed the vast opportunities that are opening up within the space industry. The first part of the flight to the moon will be a test, without a crew, to play out all options, and only in the next stage will an American-Canadian crew go to our satellite.
The careful study of the environment will probably be entrusted to a Japanese lunar rover, so that the astronauts do not have to take unnecessary risks.
NASA has been studying the lunar regolith for a long time and as early as 1988 came out with the opinion that it contains the valuable isotope helium-3, which can provide the Earth’s energy needs for the next 500 years. Of course, this would also require fusion.
The next step will be a human crew on Mars. Nelson recalled that NASA scientists recently revealed that there appears to be microbial life beneath the thin gray ice. Calculations show that despite the dust, the sunlight that penetrates inside is enough to start the process of photosynthesis.
Along with this, Nelson invited the Bulgarian students attending his lecture at Sofia University to study hard, do research and join the efforts of the international space exploration community.
“You are the Artemis generation, you will return to the moon, to Mars and go beyond,” declared the inspirational leader.
Nelson himself has the status of a legend because he did the impossible – with NASA’s ever-shrinking budget, he provoked the Golden Age of space exploration. It all started with his STS-61-C mission on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1986.
For NASA, she’s lucky. Two future NASA administrators, Charles Bolden and Congressman Bill Nelson, are on board, and the next Challenger is a disaster.
But back to Columbia – Bolden is piloting it, as he has been testing space vehicles for years, and Nelson is part of a program to introduce leading politicians to the agency’s activities.
During his tenure, Barack Obama proposed that the experienced Commander Bolden take over the agency. In contrast, Nelson is a congressman with solid space expertise and in 2019 became part of the agency’s Advisory Board. The goal is for the seasoned politician to advise the space aces on all major policy and programmatic issues.
Perhaps because of his remarkable contributions, in 2020 President Joe Biden is exploring the possibility of appointing Bill Nelson as NASA administrator. Despite the fact that his life as a congressman was largely connected to space and he participated in numerous congressional debates related to the agency, with his inherent modesty, Nelson immediately launched three experienced ladies to take the lead. But according to American journalists, Biden only shook his head and pointed his finger at Nelson.
In truth, at this point the entire space community went haywire because everyone was aware of the Congressman’s position, which was opposed to commercial spaceflight.
However, Nelson is not some rigid politician stuck in his ideas in the twentieth century, but knows how to listen and quickly assess the pros and cons of different ideas. He sifts through the “chaff” and comes to the conclusion himself that, at the head of NASA, he will defend fixed-price commercial contracts at all costs. What are they? NASA announces a goal and lets aerospace companies bid on who can achieve it better and at a better price.
What’s more, Nelson was able to inspire the “tiny guys” in the industry to participate as well, assuring them that with this competitive spirit, they would be able to do it all cheaper. And that’s exactly how it happened. Elon Musk and his SpaceX rewrote history, and now humanity has a heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The goal was to have a vehicle that would transport people to the moon so that they could travel to Mars from there. Axiom opened the way for researchers from around the world to conduct experiments on their module on the International Space Station. Pharmaceutical companies immediately took advantage of this, as microgravity enables “up” proteins and “targets” to crystallize.
And in this frozen state, it is much easier to “design” effective medications with minimal side effects.
Another “tiny” Intuitive Machines created the amazing “Odyssey” apparatus, which managed to successfully land on the moon.
Lockheed Martin created the super-successful Orion capsule that would take humans to the moon, providing them with unprecedented comfort and protection from the harsh space environment.
In this case, it is difficult to list all the successes, since dozens more companies are currently forging future breakthroughs in space, and it is safe to say that Nelson, who was an opponent of this process, is today its main driver.
But the contributions of this extraordinary man do not end there. A year after Nelson’s appointment, the James Webb Space Telescope was launched. Today he penetrates the secrets of the first galaxies born after the Beginning. Whether it was a Big Bang or something else, we’ll probably find out very soon.
That same year, 2021 saw the launch of DART, the first mission of its kind dedicated to researching and demonstrating a method of deflecting an asteroid by altering its motion in space through a kinetic impact. In September 2022, the efforts of hundreds of NASA scientists and their collaborators around the world were crowned with success.
DART collided with Dimorphos on September 26, 2022 and shortened its orbit by a full 32 minutes, many times over the 73 second target.
A year later, in 2022, Nelson did the impossible, convincing his colleagues in the Senate that they should vote all the necessary funding for the Artemis program – because it is in the name of returning people to the moon. Something unprecedented because it happened for the first time.
From this point of view, Bill Nelson achieved what will one day go down in history as NASA’s Golden Age—never before in post-Apollo history has the agency had such a fertile period filled with discoveries and breakthroughs in literally a few months.
What’s more, Nelson inspired more children and youth to dream of the moon and Mars than anyone before him, and proved that NASA can be run with super talent even if one is not a charismatic astronaut.