At the close of yesterday’s episode, we mentioned that NASA had planned a test firing of the engines for their SLS rocket system. We are pleased to share that the test-firing went off without any visible problems, and the firing lasted the expected duration. Annie will discuss this more next Wednesday during Rocket Roundup.

We also shared that President Biden had announced his picks for the new NASA administrator. We now know he also announced the pick for deputy. These picks are former Florida senator and astronaut Bill Nelson and retired astronaut Colonel Pamela Melroy.

First elected to the House of Representatives in 1978, Bill Nelson served as a representative until 1991. It was during this time that Nelson was a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia for STS-61-C in January 1986, the last successful space shuttle flight prior to the Challenger accident, and made him the second sitting member of Congress to travel into space. 

In 2000, he was elected to the Senate, where he was active on the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and worked on subcommittees as an advocate for NASA and space exploration. In May 2019, he was appointed to serve on NASA’s advisory council as a member-at-large. Then NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, stated that “Nelson is a true champion for human spaceflight and will add tremendous value as we go to the Moon and on to Mars.”

Pam Melroy is a retired USAF officer who was a member of the 1994 NASA astronaut class. She was pilot on STS-92 on Discovery in 1998, and for STS-112 on Atlantis in 2002, and then mission commander of STS-120 on Discovery in 2007. After leaving NASA in August 2009, she served as Deputy Program Manager for Space Exploration Initiatives with Lockheed Martin before returning to the public sector in 2011 when she joined the FAA as a senior technical advisor and director of field operations for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation and then as the Deputy Director of the Tactical Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

While Nelson and Melroy’s advocacy for NASA can’t be denied, there is concern that this could signal a return to a more traditional space program that relies on the large aerospace companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, rather than newer companies like SpaceX. Time will tell whether this concern will be borne out. Whatever happens, we’ll bring it to you here on the Daily Space.

More Information

White House press release

NASA statement